298 BRITJSH BIRDS. 



LARUS SABINII. 

 SABINE'S GULL. 



(PLATE 54.) 



Larus sabini, J. Saline, Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. p. 522, pi. 29 (1818) ; et auctorum 



plurimorum Schleyel, (Newton}, (Dresser), (Sounders), &c. 

 Xema sabini (Sabine), J. Ross, App. Ross's Voy. Baff. Bay, p. 57 (1819). 

 Gavia sabini (Saline), Macgill. Man. Brit. JB. ii. p. 241 (1842). 



Sabine' s Gull was discovered by Capt. Sabine at the head of Baffin's Bay 

 in 1818, during Ross's first voyage to the Arctic regions. Four years later 

 an example was shot in Belfast Bay on the 18th of September (Thompson, 

 B. Ireland, iii. p. 309). Since this date between thirty and forty examples 

 have been obtained in various parts of Great Britain and Ireland ; with very 

 few exceptions they were shot in September and October, and all of them 

 except two were immature birds. After such repeated visits this bird may 

 fairly claim to be regarded as a rare straggler to our islands on autumn 

 migration. 



Sabine's Gull is a circumpolar bird, breeding on the shores of the Arctic 

 Ocean. It is not uncommon in various localities in Arctic America, from 

 Alaska to Greenland. In the Old World it has been found on the Sibe- 

 rian side of Behring's Straits ; MiddendorfF found it breeding in consider- 

 able numbers on the Taimur peninsula, and it has occurred in Spitzbergen. 

 In winter it has occurred at Heligoland and in various localities on the 

 coasts of France, on the Bermudas, the Atlantic coasts of America as far 

 south as New York, and on several of the Great Lakes. It has also 

 occurred on the Peruvian coast. The only other Fork-tailed Gull is Larus 

 furcatus, a much larger bird, supposed to be found on the west coast of 

 tropical America. 



Like all the Black-headed Gulls, Sabine's Gull is an inland bird, at least 

 during the breeding-season, though it appears never to breed far from the 

 sea. It does not differ much from the other Black-headed Gulls in its 

 habits ; but Middendorff describes its flight as resembling that of a Tern. 

 He states that it arrived at its breeding-grounds, in lat. 74, on the Taimur 

 peninsula on the 17th of June, and that he found it breeding in the last 

 week of July, in company with the Arctic Tern, on the islands in the lakes 

 and rivers of that district. The nests were mere depressions in the moss, 

 lined with a few dead grass-stalks. The eggs were very highly incubated ; 

 but in the last week of August the young were not able to fly, though 

 they dived with much agility, the parent birds flying round in great alarm, 

 uttering incessant cries. Sabine also found this bird breeding in company 



