THE IVORY GULL. 389 



breeding itself, there is every reason to conclude, that no 

 birds resort thither except for the purpose of breeding. 



The birds have their favourite spots, indiscriminately in 

 the northern or the southern parts of the country, and they 

 fish, pick up small insects along the shores, sometimes hawk 

 for them on the wing, and, generally speaking, carry on the 

 war with great assiduity against those creatures which it 

 seems to be their peculiar province to thin. 



THE IVORY GULL (Larus ebumeus). 



The ivory gull is by far the most beautiful of the genus ; 

 and, indeed, it is one of the most beautiful of birds, though 

 with us it appears only as an occasional visitant. Its habi- 

 tation is far in the north, and its nesting place in the close 

 vicinity of those enduring snows, the purity of which is 

 rivalled by its mature plumage, which is all over spotless 

 white, close, beautiful, and almost shining in its gloss. The 

 feet are dark, the tarsi very short, and the tibiae feathered 

 down nearly to the joint. The length is about twenty 

 inches, the wings rather long, and the body of the bird hand- 

 somely formed. The young are said to be darker in their 

 first year's plumage, and the mottling to remain black in the 

 second, although the white then predominates. The colours 

 agree with, and at the same time indicate, a very northerly 

 habitat, as, towards the extreme of latitude, the colours, both 

 of animals and of vegetables, approximate more and more to 

 the extremes of white and black ; indicating that there the 

 light is either reflected off without decomposition, or absorbed 

 and quenched. Some of the continental naturalists have 

 described these birds as breeding on the inland waters, even 

 in the middle or southern parts of Europe ; but they must 

 be mistaken ; the ivory gull is formed for the extreme north, 

 and it quits not that region except in the severest weather. 

 All along the margin of the polar ice, from the American 



