104 
GLAUCOUS GULL. 
occurred in Gloucestershire, on the Severn, near Bristol, in the 
winter of 1840. A young bird was purchased in the London 
market in the winter of 1838. 
In Scotland, Robert Gray, Esq., of Southcroffc, Govan, 
Glasgow, has written me word of his having shot this species 
at Dunbar. It occasionally occurs, he says, in severe weather, 
on the East Lothian shore. One was met with on Loch Lomond. 
One in the Firth of the Clyde, in December, 1822. Sir 
William Jardine says, ‘We possess a specimen killed in winter 
in the Firth of Forth, and for the last two winters a Gull 
with white wings has occasionally travelled up and down the 
River Annan for fifteen miles, but has been so shy as to 
baffle all endeavours to procure it.’ 
In Ireland it is an occasional visitant. 
In Shetland, many were observed at different times by Mr. 
Lawrence Edmonston, in 1809, November, 1814, and subse¬ 
quently, chiefly in Uist, the most northerly of the group. A 
few immature birds occur every winter, and in the latter part 
of November, and up to the middle of December, 1847, four 
adult specimens were procured by Mr. Robert Dunn; he also 
obtained in January, 1848, four more, and in February one 
other. Three or four others, also adult, the end of 1852. 
In Orkney, two were shot in San day, by Mr. Strang, in 
the winter of 1844-5. The species has since been known to 
occur frequently. 
The present bird frequents both the open sea and the 
entrances of the more exposed bays, though at times seen 
inland in quest of food. 
They are here only winter visitants, coming in the autumn 
and going in the spring, in or about October and April. 
These birds are fearless and daring, though disposed to be 
shy when not attracted by food. They, like some others, 
bite severely if taken, and all the more so, as may ‘a fortiori’ 
be supposed, from their size and strength. They are generally 
seen singly or in small parties of three or four, that is to 
say in the most northerly of our islands; but as many as 
one hundred were seen together on one occasion in Shetland, 
by Mr. Edmonston, and in still more northerly regions they 
assemble in large numbers. They rest on the higher parts 
of floating masses of ice, and, when not feeding, are of grave 
and inactive habits. 
They fly with the wings widely extended, and in an easy, 
measured, and buoyant manner. 
