ICELAND GULL. 333 



LARUS LEUCOPTERUS. 



ICELAND GULL. 



(PLATE 51.) 



Larus leucopterus, Fdber, Prodr. isl. Orn. p. 91 (1822) ; et auctorum plurimortun 



Naumann, Temminck, Audubon, Di'esser, Saunders, &c. 

 Larus glaucoides, Temm.fide Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 662. 

 Larus arcticus, Macgill. Mem. Wern. Soc. v. p. 268 (1824). 

 Glaucus leucopterus (Fab.}, Bruch, Journ. Orn. 1853, p. 101. 

 Larus chalcopterus, Licht. Nomencl. Ac. p. 99 (1854). 

 Laroides leucopterus (Fab.), I 



Laroides chalcopterus (Lic7it.},\ ruch > Journ ' Orn " 1856 >PP- 281,282. 

 Leucus arcticus (Macyill.}, \ 



Leucus clialcoptertis (Licht.}, \ Bonap, Consp. ii. pp. 216, 217 (1857). 

 Leucus leucopterus (Fab.}, 1 



The Iceland Gull was unknown to Brisson or Linnaeus, but appears to 

 have been discovered in 1818., in Greenland, by Capt. Sabine, who was 

 persuaded by Temraiuck' to regard it as an Arctic variety of the Herring- 

 Gull. Temminck soon found out his error, and named the new species 

 Larus glaucoides ; but in the meantime Faber had discovered the bird in 

 Iceland, and called it Larus leucopterus, a name by which it is universally 

 known. Simultaneously with its discovery in Greenland and Iceland, 

 Dr. Edmonston, of Shetland (by whom the Ivory Gull and the Glaucous 

 Gull were added to the British list), was trying to obtain examples of a large 

 and of a small white-winged Gull which the natives assured him frequented 

 the coast. In 1822 he succeeded in obtaining an example of the larger 

 species (the Glaucous Gull), which he named Larus islandicus ; but it 

 was not until 1823 that he obtained an example of the smaller species, 

 when, finding that the larger species had already been named and described, 

 he proposed to transfer the name which he had given to the larger species 

 to the smaller one. Although we must adopt Faber's name, we must do 

 Dr. Edmonston the justice to admit that he was the first naturalist to 

 discover that the Iceland Gull was a British bird. 



This species is only a winter visitor to our shores and one which appears 

 with great irregularity. Like the Bohemian Waxwing, it is a gipsy migrant, 

 and occasionally occurs in unusual numbers. Early in January 1873 it 



