576 LARID.E. 



the name of Larus leucopterus, has occasionally been taken 

 in this country, and was at first confounded with the 

 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. Dr. Richardson's notice of this 

 species in the Fauna Boreal i- Americana may be quoted 

 in aid of this view. " Larus leucopterus. Faber. During 

 Captain 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 argentatus, the 

 Herring Gull ; and, in deference to his authority, it was 

 described as such by Captain Sabine. Both he and other 

 Ornithologists have, however, since that time, published 

 it as a distinct species under different appellations, 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." Captain 

 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 



