BIRDS OF ICELAND 113 



The adult bird is white, with dark grey-brown 

 mantle and wings ; wing-quills (primaries) nearly 

 black, tipped with white ; legs and feet flesh pink. 

 Length 30 inches, wing 20 inches; females smaller. 

 Young birds are dirty white, mottled with brown, 

 and show no black on the back till their third year. 

 Young gulls are very difficult to distinguish, as a 

 rule, but there ought to be little difficulty with the 

 young of this species in Iceland, as Lams fuscus and 

 L. argentatus do not occur there. On the score of 

 size, they can be separated from all but L. glaucus 

 or L. leucopterus, from which the black on their 

 primaries will distinguish them. 



As a bold and greedy robber, this bird comes in for 

 a good deal of perseoution in the breeding season. It 

 preys on fish; eggs of any kind of bird; young, 

 wounded, or weakly birds ; young lambs or any kind 

 of carrion. But it is a picturesque bird of a graceful 

 and stately flight, and a great ornament to the shores 

 and sea. 



Larus glaucus, Brlinnich. Glaucous Gull. 



Native names : ' Hvit-mafur,' ' Hvit-fugl ' ; the 

 young, ' Gra-mafur.' 



Eesident, and pretty common round the coasts, but 

 not seen in the interior (as in Novaia Zemlya, for in- 

 stance), nor does it breed there, but in crags, etc., 

 round the coast. It is not, however, in my experience, 

 anything like as abundant as the last species (jjace 



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