63 



BUONAPARTE'S GULL. 



BUOKA.PABTIAN GULL. 



Larus Buonapartii, THOMPSON. AUDUBON. 



Larus ? Buonapartii Of Buonaparte. 



IF I was writing a history of France, or rather a history 

 of the World, instead of a History of British Birds, I might 

 here enlarge, were my pen able to do equal justice to the 

 subject with the pencil of Landseer, on the contrast between 

 'Peace' and 'War,' the name of Buonaparte suggesting to the 

 eye of the mind a picture, which not even the touch of that 

 greatest of painters, ancient or modern, can equally convey to 

 it. Whether 'True Greatness' is most and best exhibited in 

 the life of the Prince, or in that of the Emperor, in the man 

 of science, or the man of the sword, whether the study of 

 all GOD'S creatures for one's own instruction and that of others, 

 or the wholesale destruction of the last-made and best of 

 them all, for the sake of self alone, is most for the glory of 

 GOD or the good of man, I hope, I know, that even my 

 writings have largely assisted to spread in my country a right 

 spirit, which will enable many to return the true answer to 

 the question, and to make it tell so far with practical effect. 



The present species, named after the Prince of Canino, 

 Charles Lucien Buonaparte, the eminent naturalist, has in 

 America been noticed in different parts of the Union, and 

 throughout the Fur Countries in abundance, in Chesapeake 

 Bay, Passamaquody Harbour, Charleston Harbour, and about 

 the Great Slave Lake. 



In Scotland, a specimen was shot by Sir George H. Leith, 

 on the shore of Loch Lomond, in Dumbartonshire, the end 

 of April, 1850. 



