

SABINE'S GULL. 539 



H. H. Dombrain, Esq., of Dublin, wrote me word that he 

 had obtained a third example of this Gull, which was also 

 a young bird of the year. Since then I have notes of one 

 killed at Milford Haven, in the autumn of 1839, and 

 another shot in Cambridgeshire was shown to me by Dr. 

 Fitch. This last bird is now in the collection of J. T. 

 Martin, Esq. of Quy Hall. M. Temminck, in the 4th 

 Part of his Manual, notices three instances of the occur- 

 rence of this species known to him ; one, a young bird, 

 killed on the coast of Holland ; a second, killed on the 

 Rhine ; and a third near Rouen. M. Temminck has also 

 noticed that there is one example of this bird in the Mu- 

 seum at Vienna. 



This species of Gull was first described in the 12th 

 volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, page 

 520, by the late Joseph Sabine, Esq. from specimens 

 sent by his brother, Captain Edward Sabine, of the Royal 

 Artillery, who accompanied the expedition of 1818 in 

 search of a North- West Passage. The account of these 

 birds was that "they were met with by Captain Sabine, 

 and killed by him on the 25th of July, 1818, on a group 

 of three rocky islands, each about a mile across, on the 

 west coast of Greenland, twenty miles distant from the 

 mainland in latitude 75 29' N., and longitude 60 9' W. 

 They were associated in considerable numbers with Arctic 

 Terns, breeding on those islands, the nests of both birds 

 being intermingled. This Gull lays two eggs on the bare 

 ground ; these are hatched the last week in July ; the 

 young are mottled at first with brown and dull yellow. 

 The eggs are an inch and a half in length, and of regular 

 shape, not much pointed ; the colour is olive, blotched 

 with brown. The parent birds flew with impetuosity 

 towards persons approaching their nests and young; and 



