THE KITTIWAKE GULL 287 



GLAUCOUS GULL, OR BURGOMASTER 



LARUS GLAUCUS 



General plumage white ; back and wings bluish grey ; tail and termina 

 portion of the quills white ; bill strong, yellow ; legs livid flesh-colour. 

 Young mottled with white, grey, and light brown ; shafts of the quills 

 white ; in other respects like the last, but the bill is longer and stouter. 

 Length about twenty-nine inches ; breadth five feet two inches. Eggs 

 as in the last, but of a greener hue. 



The Glaucous Gull, a large, handsome, and powerful bird, resembles 

 in many of its habits the species last described, but it has not been 

 known to breed in even the most northerly of the British Isles. It 

 pays occasional visits to our shores in winter. A few specimens 

 only have been shot in the southern portion of the island, and no 

 large number in Scotland ; but in the neighbourhood of the whale 

 fishery it is common enough. It is very voracious, and not only 

 eats fish, whether dead or alive, and shares with the whale-fisher 

 in his booty, but pursues other sea-fowl, compels them to disgorge 

 their prey, robs them of their eggs, and, if they resist, kills and 

 devours them. 1 In short, it is the very tyrant of the Arctic Ocean. 

 Its predatory habits were noticed by the early navigators in these 

 waters, who gave it the name of Burgomaster ; but as no accurate 

 description of the bird was brought home, and as some of our other 

 large Gulls are open to a charge of similar rapacity, the name was 

 naturally transferred by Willughby to another species, which he 

 Jcalls the Wagel (probably the Great Black-Backed Gull in immature 

 plumage). This was in 1676. A hundred years later Brunnich 

 gave it the name of Glaucous Gull ; but it is still called Burgo- 

 master by the Dutch, and by Arctic voyagers generally. 



Mr. St. John gives the name of Wagel to the Great Grey Gull. 



THE KITTIWAKE GULL 



RISSA TRIDACTYLA 



Hind toe represented by a small knob without a claw. Summer plumage 

 — head and neck pale bluish ash, a few fine dusky streaks before the eyes ; 

 forehead, region of the eyes, and all the under parts, pure white ; upper 

 plumage bluish ash ; first primary with the outer web black, four first 

 tipped with black, two or three of them ending in a small white spot, 

 fifth having the tip white bordered with black ; bill greenish yellow ; 

 orbits red ; irides brown ; feet dark olive-brown. In winter, the whole 

 of the head and neck is white. Young birds have the head white, mottled 

 with grey and dusky ; upper feathers tipped with brown ; bend and 

 upper edge of the wing black ; primaries black ; tail black, towards the 

 end tipped with white ; bill, orbits, and irides, black ; feet pale brown. 

 Length fifteen and a half inches. Eggs stone-colour, spotted with grey 

 and two shades of brown. 



The Kittiwake Gull takes its name from the cry with which in the 



1 A specimen shot in Norfolk was found to contain a full-grown Golden 

 Plover entire. 



