58 



ROSS'S GULL. 



BOSS'S EOST GULL. OUNEATE-TAILED GULL. 

 WEDGE-TAILED GULL. 



Larus Rossii, RICHARDSON. NUTTALL. AT-DUBON. 



" " MACGILLIVRAY. YAKRELL. WILSON. 



" roseus, JARDINE. SELBY 



Rhodostethia Rossi, MACGILLIVRAY. 



Larus Rotsii Of Ross. 



THIS species is named after Commander Ross, R.N., by 

 whom the first specimen was obtained. Two were shot on the 

 coast of Melville Island, during Sir Edward Parry's second 

 expedition. Several were seen north of Spitzbergen, and the 

 species was also noticed by Lieutenant Forster, R.N., in 

 Waygait Straits. 



A specimen of this beautiful Gull was shot in Yorkshire, by 

 Lord Howden's gamekeeper, in February, 1847, at Milford- 

 cum-Kirby, near Tadcaster, in the West-Riding. Another is 

 reported in the 'Zoologist,' page 3388, on the authority of 

 Mr. J. B. Ellman, to have been obtained at Pevensey, in 

 Sussex, in the beginning of 1852. 



Length, about one foot two inches; the male in winter 

 has the bill black, the inside o the mouth reddish orange; 

 the edges of the eyelids reddish orange; near and around the 

 eye are small black feathers; head and crown, white; the neck 

 has a collar round it of pitch black, it is otherwise white, 

 as well as the nape, chin, throat, and breast, the latter with 

 some grey and a deep tinge oT 'rich and rare' peach-blossom, 

 red or rose-colour borrowed, as it were, in the hyperborean 

 regions, the native places of the bird, from the 'Aurora Borealis,' 

 the 'Northern Light,' which, as if to make up for the brief 

 day, transplants the gleam of the morning to gild the long- 

 night of the Arctic year. Back, clear grey. 



