14 BIRDS OF IVIGTUT. 



a dead or wounded Gull out of a boat, they may easily be 

 brought within shooting distance. 



GLAUCOUS GULL 



LAKUS GLAUCUS. 



This species breeds in considerable numbers along the 

 open sea ; and probably, also, high up on the " bird-cliff" 

 at the head of the fjord, above the nests of Larus leucop- 

 terus. Some, chiefly young birds, remain over winter. An 

 old bird, in a complete summer dress, was shot on the 20th 

 of March. I have seen these Gulls enter, uninvited, among 

 the Eider Ducks, and try to rob them of mussels that they 

 had brought up from the bottom. After the young leave 

 their nests in August, they gather on the flat tracts along 

 the shore, and feed on the berries of Empetrum nigrum, of 

 which they consume a vast quantity. At this time the 

 young birds are by no means shy, while the old birds are 

 always difficult to approach. 



ICELAND GULL. 

 LARUS LEUCOPTERUS. 



A number of young birds, and some few old ones, re- 

 main during the winter, but the majority leave in October 

 and return in March. About a thousand pair nest on the 

 " bird-cliff," above the Kittiwakes. The lowest nests are 

 built at a height of about two hundred feet ; the highest at 

 about five hundred feet above sea-level. In 1888 a single 

 pair hatched their young away from the rest, on the face of 

 the cliff, close by the edge of the ice, and at the height of 

 forty feet. Two pair raised their young, during the three 

 summers I was in Greenland, on a cliff which was formerly 



