IVORY GULL. 337 



LARUS EBURNEUS. 

 IVORY GULL. 



(PLATE 50.) 



? Larus albus, Gunner, Leem. Beskr. Finm-Lapp, p. 285 (1767). 



Larus eburneus, Phipps, Voyage towards the North Pole, p. 187 (1774) ; et auctorum 



plurimorum Gmelin, Schlegel,(Baird, Brewer, fy Ridgway),(Newton\ (Dresser}, 



(Sounders), &c. 



Larus caudidus, Midler, Prodr. p. viii (1776). 

 Larus niveus, Bodd. Tabl, PL Enl. p. 58 (1783). 

 Gavia eburneus (Phipps), Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 563. 

 Pagophila eburnea (Phipps), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 69 (1829). 

 Cetosparactes eburneus (Phipps}, Macgill. Man. Brit. B. ii. p. 252 (1842). 

 Larus brachytarsus, Holb. Faun. Grcenl. p. 52 (1846). 

 Pagophila brachytarsa (Holb.), Bruch, Journ. Orn. 1853, p. 106. 

 Gavia brachytarsa (Holb.}, Bonap. Consp. ii. p. 230 (1857). 

 Gavia alba (Gunn.), Stejn. Pr. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882, p. 39. 



Although the Ivory Gull was discovered in Spitzbergen as long ago as 

 1671, by Martens, who visited those islands in a whaling-ship, it was not 

 honoured with a Latin name until upwards of a century later, when Com- 

 modore Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, bestowed upon it the name it 

 now bears. It appears to have been figured for the first time in the 

 celebrated ' Planches Enluminees/ under the name of " Le Goilande blanc 

 du Spitzberg." 



The Ivory Gull is one of the very few birds which are residents in the 

 Arctic regions, and is only a rare straggler to the British Islands. As 

 might naturally be expected under these circumstances, it occurs more 

 frequently in the north than in the south. The first recorded British 

 example was obtained by Dr. Edmonston in the winter of 1822, on the most 

 northerly of the Shetland Islands (Saxby, ' Birds of Shetland/ p. 332) . 

 Since that date it has occurred several times on these islands as well as on 

 the Orkneys, perhaps a score times in different parts of Scotland, nearly 

 as often in England, in most cases on rocky coasts, but only twice in 

 Ireland. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that of the examples obtained 

 in the British Islands nearly the same number were in adult as in 

 immature plumage. 



Except perhaps on the icy shores of Greenland, the Ivory Gull does not 

 probably breed more than a thousand miles from the North Pole. Within 

 this limit, wherever land has been found, the Ivory Gull has been observed 

 during the breeding-season in Spitzbergen, Franz- Josef Land, Nova 



VOL. III. Z 



