THE WEDGE-TAILED GULL. 59 



They got their food on the sea-beach, standing near the water's edge, and picking 

 up the marine insects which are cast on shore." 



This Gull feeds not only on the coast, but in brackish pools which may be 

 some distance from the sea, where they find small fishes and crustaceans. 



As noted at the beginning of this article, Sabine's Gull has been seen most 

 frequently on the southern and eastern coasts of England, and only on the eastern 

 side of Ireland. Mr. Gurney expresses his belief that the appearance of this Gull 

 and many other North American birds, on the eastern instead of the western 

 aspects of the British Isles, which are nearer to the United States, is due to the 

 west winds of autumn, which these birds love to fly against. " Certainly if it were 

 not for the west wind," he says, " there would not be that annual east-to-west 

 autumnal migration which there is to Norfolk and on the east coast of England 

 generally. The direction taken by the birds would be changed if the prevailing 

 winds blew from any other quarter than west, for they like flying against it, 

 account for it how we may, though it is not to be denied that there are now and 

 then exceptions." 



Family LARIDsE. Subfamily LARINAZ. 



WEDGE-TAILED GULL. 



Rhodostethia rosea, MACGILL. 



THE Wedge-tailed Gull is the most beautiful, perhaps, of all the Gulls. It is 

 with much regret, therefore, that we must admit that its claim to a place 

 among the birds of the British Isles is very slender, for there is but one re.cord 

 of its having been taken within our area in Yorkshire and that as long ago as 

 the year 1846. It is a bird, however, which has long attracted great interest; for 

 till quite recently nothing was known of its history, and many were the conjectures 



