ICELANDGULL. 595 



the name of Larus leucopterus, has occasionally been taken 

 in this country, and was at first confounded with tke 

 Glaucous Gull, another rare species, having also white 

 wings, and only differing from it in being considerably 

 larger. It happens, too, that the various names which 

 have been proposed for it, not excepting that of leuco- 

 pterus, White-winged, given by Faber himself, are not 

 wholly free from objection, since both these Gulls are 

 glaucous in reference to colour, both are inhabitants of 

 Iceland, and both have the principal wing-feathers white. 

 The Iceland Gull bears the same proportion in size to the 

 Glaucous Gull, that the Lesser Black-backed Gull does 

 to the Great Black-backed Gull, and I have therefore 

 added an English name referring to size by which they 

 may be distinguished. Sir John Richardson's notice of 

 this species in the Fauna Boreali- Americana may be 

 quoted in aid of this view. "Larus leucopterus, Faber. 

 During Sir James C. Ross's and Sir Edward Parry's first 

 voyages, many specimens of this Gull were obtained in 

 Davis's Straits, Baffin's Bay, and at Melville Island. M. 

 Temminck, to whom they were communicated, considered 

 it at first to be merely an Arctic variety of Larus argen- 

 tatus, the Herring Gull ; and, in deference to his authority, 

 it was described as such by Colonel Sabine. Both he 

 and other ornithologists have, however, since that time, 

 published it as a distinct species under different appella- 

 tions, the one which we have selected having the priority. 

 The plumage of L. leucopterus differs little from that of 

 L. glaucus ; but the great superiority of the latter bird in 

 size is sufficient to distinguish the species." Sir James 

 C. Ross says of this species, in his last Appendix, " it 

 was found breeding on the face of the same precipice 

 with the Glaucous, but at a much less height, and in 

 greater numbers. It is found in Greenland. It is not 



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