BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 207 



266, LARUS GLAUCUS, Gmelin. Glaucous Gull. 



Provincial Burgomaster. 



This large northern Gull has been killed on several 

 occasions during the autumn and winter, near Flam- 

 borough, almost in every case immature birds, in the 

 broccoli-brown plumage. 



A very fine mature bird, a male, now in the col- 

 lection of Sir Henry Boynton, Bart., of Burton 

 Agnes, was shot at Bridlington early in January 

 1871 (see Zoologist 1871, p. 2488)*. 



* In the 'Open Polar Sea/ Dr. Hayes gives us a most 

 interesting and graphic description of the habits of these marine 

 vultures at their breeding-stations. He says : " Near the Little- 

 ton Island of Captain Inglefield, we saw a number of Ducks, both 

 Eiders and Hareldas. A rugged little ledge, which I named 

 Eider Island, was so thickly colonized that we could hardly 

 walk without treading on a nest. We killed with guns and 

 stones over two hundred birds in a few hours. It was near the 

 close of the breeding-season. The nests were still occupied by 

 the mother birds j but many of the young had burst the shell, 

 and were nestling under the wing, or taking their first lessons 

 in the water-pools. Some, more advanced, were already in the 

 ice-sheltered channels, greedily waiting for the shell-fish and 

 sea-urchins which the old bird busied herself in procuring for 

 them. Near by was a low and isolated rock-ledge, which we 

 called Hans Island. The Glaucous Gulls, those cormorants of 

 the Arctic seas, had made it their peculiar homestead. Their 

 progeny, already fully fledged and voracious, crowded the guano- 

 whitened rocks ; and the mothers, with long necks and gaping 

 yellow bills, swooped above the peaceful shallows of the Eiders, 

 carrying off the young birds, seemingly just as their wants re- 

 quired. The Gull would gobble up and swallow a young Eider 

 in less time than it takes me to describe the act. For a moment 



