576 



at Cambridge Bay in June, 1853 (Zool. 1879, p. 8). On the 

 8th August, 1848, Richardson had found a nesting-place, 

 around which the parent birds and their spotted young were 

 flying, on an island off Cape Dalhousie, in about 130 long.W., 

 near the estuary of the Mackenzie River; subsequently 

 MacFarlane obtained many eggs for the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution along the Arctic coast about Anderson and Franklin 

 Rivers ; and this Gull is now known to breed plentifully in 

 the marshes of Alaska. It is common on the opposite 

 shores of Eastern Siberia ; the ' Vega ' obtained it in 

 Bering Straits ; and Middendorff found it breeding abun- 

 dantly, in company with the Arctic Tern, on the Taimyr 

 peninsula in 74^ N. lat. It has not been obtained on 

 Novaya Zemlya, nor on Franz-Josef Land ; but Sabine told 

 Richardson that he shot two on Spitsbergen, and the latter 

 says the bird brought home was in full breeding-plumage. 



On the autumn migration examples of Sabine' s Gull, 

 mostly young birds, visit the islands and northern shores 

 of the German Ocean, and also those of the north-west of 

 France ; the Editor has examined a fine adult, still in breed- 

 ing-plumage, shot off Brittany on the 25th August, 1872. 

 In America, its recorded range on migration is down to New 

 York on the east ; also to the Bermudas ; and to Great Salt 

 Lake, Utah, on the western side of the Rocky Mountains ; 

 an example has been obtained at Tumbes, and two specimens 

 in nearly adult winter plumage, shot near Callao, Peru, in 

 12 lat. S., have been presented to the Editor by Capt. 

 A. H. Markham, R.N. This extension of its range in the 

 Pacific is of great interest, as it there overlaps the area of 

 the only other representative of the genus, Xema furcatum, 

 a much larger species, of great rarity, the third existing 

 example having recently been obtained on the coast of Peru, 

 by Capt. Markham (P. Z. S. 1882, p. 523). 



The downy nestling and the egg of Sabine' s Gull were 

 first described and figured by Middendorff (Sib. Reise, ii. 

 p. 245, pi. xxiv.). Eggs obtained by MacFarlane, one of 

 which has been figured by Prof. Newton (P. Z. S. 1871, p. 57, 

 pi. iv. fig. 5), are of a dull brownish-olive, with faint brown 



