120 KTCHARDSON'S SKTTA. 



a bird whose flight is more varied, or kept up for a greater 

 length of time without taking rest. On the shore it runs 

 about briskly, and occasionally rests itself on the sea by 

 swimming. 



They plunder other sea-birds of their eggs, like the kindred 

 species, pursuing the owners thereof in the air when they see 

 any food procured by them, forcing them to drop the prey 

 they have captured, and then seizing it themselves, their 

 motto being 'Le droit de plus fort.' They thus attack and 

 rob even the great burgomaster, as well as the inferior Kittiwake 

 and the Terns. They also pick up insects, small birds and 

 their eggs, and other food. 



The note is a loud harsh cry or squall, the origin, I 

 should suppose, of the name of the bird. 



These birds build both separately and in companies twenty, 

 thirty, or forty pairs together. They make their nests on some 

 raised part of a marshy place, or the top of an upland moory 

 waste; the heath, moss, lichens, or grass thereon being embedded 

 into a nest. 



The eggs are two in number. They are laid early in June. 

 They are of an olive brown colour, spotted with dark brown. 



The Arctic Gull is a bird of very neat and even elegant 

 appearance. 



Male; length, one foot ten inches; bill, bluish at the base, 

 which is broad, and nearly black at the tip, which is hooked, 

 and black also on the under mandible, which is slightly angular 

 and grooved on the sides for two thirds of its length. Cere, 

 bluish; iris, chesnut brown. Forehead, pale yellowish; head 

 on the sides, pale yellowish, on the crown, dark dusky brownish 

 grey; neck on the sides and nape, pale yellowish, the feathers 

 on the back part of the neck being stiff and pointed, and 

 forming a sort of collar around it; chin and throat, pale 

 yellowish; breast, yellowish white, passing on the lower part 

 and sides into greyish brown; back, dusky grey. 



The wings reach only a little beyond the side feathers of 

 the tail; greater and lesser wing coverts, dark dusky grey; 

 primaries, dark dusky grey, the tips the darkest, the shafts 

 almost white nearly to the tip. Tail, dark dusky grey, the 

 shafts almost white nearly through their whole length; the 

 central feathers, which are pointed at the ends, are three 

 inches longer than those next on either side; under tail 

 coverts, dark dusky grey. Legs and toes, blackish, blotted 

 with yellow. The fronts are scutellated, the hinder parts 



