474 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



regarding the distribution of this species during the breeding 

 season: "1848, August 7. The island on which we encamped is 

 a breeding place of Xema Sabini, the handsomest of all the gulls. 

 Many of the parents were flying about, accompanied by their 

 spotted young, also on the wing. This is the most easterly 

 ascertained breeding station of the species, which has been found 

 at Spitzbergen, Greenland, and Melville Peninsula. Mr Rae shot 

 some fine male specimens, whose plumage and dimensions agreed 

 exactly with the description in the Fauna Boreali- Americana. 

 The eggs are deposited in hollows of the short and scanty mossy 

 turf which clothes the ground." * 



THE LITTLE GULL. 

 LARUS MINUTUS. 



ACCORDING to Mr Selby, this species has been obtained in the 

 Firth of Clyde, but no date is given. Since the publication of his 

 work on British ornithology, in which the Clyde bird was figured, 

 the Little Gull has been observed in several Scottish districts ; but 

 only, so far as I can learn, in two other western localities, viz.: the 

 island of Skye, where a specimen was killed in 1865 by Captain 

 Cameron, of Glenbrittle, and Loch Lomond, where another was 

 seen by myself. 



In 1840 I saw seven or eight specimens flying in the old harbour 

 at Dunbar in East Lothian; they were very tame, and seemed 

 intent on picking up floating garbage on the water. The birds at 

 length attracted the notice of idle fishermen and boys who were 

 lounging on the pier, and owing to their tameness (whether arising 

 from hunger or other causes, I am not able to say) three of them 

 were literally pelted to death with stones. 



The late Mr James Wilson, in his interesting voyage already 

 referred to in this work, mentions having seen a specimen which 

 was killed in Caithness, in the collection of Mr Sinclair, surgeon, 

 Wick; and I have seen a very perfect adult bird in the Elgin 

 Museum which was shot near Fraserburgh on 28th June, 1854. 

 The species had previously occurred in Morayshire, a specimen 

 having been procured near Loch Spynie, in April, 1847, as re- 

 corded by the late Charles St. John. Mr Edward of Banff 



*VoL i., p. 262. 



