290 SABINE6 OULL. 



mens were procured by Captain Sabine during the 

 Northern Expedition in 1818, and they were after- 

 wards seen by the other arctic voyagers ; they have 

 been met with in Spitzbergen, Igloolic, and Behring 

 Straits ; and the first birds were killed on a group of 

 islands on the west coast of Greenland, where they 

 were breeding in company with the arctic terns, 

 laying their eggs on the bare ground. 



This species, in the forked form of the tail, ex- 

 hibits a variation from any of the others either 

 belonging to the black-headed division or to the 

 true gulls; in other respects it is a small grace- 

 ful bird, rather slightly made. In the adult breed- 

 ing plumage a specimen before us has the head, 

 throat, and upper part of the neck, blackish grey 

 on the nape black, shading into the grey, and run- 

 ning to a point forwards ; mantle, wings, and ter- 

 tials grey; greater covers and secondaries broadly 

 tipped with white ; lower part of the neck, upper 

 tail-covers, tail and under parts, pure white ; quills 

 black, with white tips, except the first ; the half of 

 the inner webs white, as in the terns ; whole edge 

 of the wing black ; bill black at the base, the tip 

 yellowish white ; feet and legs black. 



The specimen shot in Belfast Bay, the drawing 

 of which we have alluded to, was in the autumnal 

 plumage of the first year, and Mr. Thompson thus 

 described it : " The forehead, space immediately 

 above the eye. and between it and the bill (with 

 the exception of the narrow line of greyish black 

 closely encircling the front and lower part of the 



