234 



LONG-WINGED SWIMMERS — LONGIPENNES. 





:■ 



" Tlmt tliis Gull may aliviuly lie foiisidcn'd a sutlii'ii'ntly cstaMislu'd specios is not my opinion ; 

 but, on the other liand, I conld not well avoid desii^'natinij it by a soparato nanu', — partly bi'cause 

 the diffLTiMK-es from L. argfnlutu.-i si-em to 'ue too •,Mvat to i^upposo that it is an accidental varii'ty 

 of one of the races of this species, and partly becanse it has been impossible for me to refer it with 

 any certainty to any other known IJuli. In some respects it resembles Audnbon's L. otridenlah'.^ 

 from the west coast of North America ; and I should be inclined to consider it this, did not Amhdion 

 expressly say of his species that it is just as lari,'e as f.. vuirin us ('i)vi\. Biogr.' V. 32(1). Ih'uch, 

 to be sure, attributes (' Journal fiir OrnilholoLtie.' 1. 101) a si/.e to this species which aj^rees lieltcr 

 with the Gull here mentioned ; but how can this discrepancy be reconciled with the size of the two 

 examples whose measurements Audubon (,'ives, and on which he has established the species ( " 



In the "Ibis" for 1878, p. 480, are the following' remarks by II. Giitke, on a specimen of this 

 Gull obtained in IIelij;oland on the 20th of August of that year ; — 



"The coloration of the back and o\iter win>^-coverts forms an exact miiMle shade between tlii' 

 slaty black of L.fnscns and the li},dit {j;ray of L. niycnfiitii.i. The specimen beinj,' in the moult for 

 its winter-dress, tiie marks on the feathers of the neck appeardarker than those of any Gull I knuw 

 of; in fact these arrow-shajied marks may be termed jiure black. 



"About the identity of the species no doubt whatever exists, as I have been able to coni])Mn' 

 the specimen with one of L. ajfiniti in my possession, obtained by Dr. Otto Finsch on the Ob during; 

 his recent Siberian e.xcui-sion." 



TliP Siberian Herring Gull claims a i>lai'o in tlio fauna of North America as a bird 

 of Greeiilaml — in which jilaco. however, it is presiuneil to he only a rare ami occasional 

 visitin". It Avas first described by Heinhardt in ISHo, from an inunatiire specimen 

 that had straggled to Grecidand. 



Middendorff met with this species, which he described as a variety of L. (irtjciifafii.t, 

 on the southern shores of the Sea of Ukotsk. Immature specinu'iis had previously 

 been taken on the Ued Sea and on the ]?eloochistan coast ; hut the true specitic 

 relations of these birds liad remained unexplained until they had been proved to 

 belong to this species. The sanu' is true of birds taken by lliunc about Kurraclicc 

 which he mistook for L. ocvhlciitdl'm. 



We know as yet but little of the distinctive habits of this species. Its centre of 

 distribution during the summer appears to be on the Vetclnu'a IJiver, while in the 

 winter it waiulers to Southern Asia and X(U'thern Africa ; but lu)w much farther is 

 not known. 



Messrs. Henry Seebohm and J. A. Harvic-l^rowu met with tliis .species on the 

 IVtchora. It arrives in its spring migration at Ust-Zyl ma about the Itth of ^lay, 

 and breeds on the shores of the delta and the lagoons of the l'»'tchora. Several of 

 its eggs were procm-ed ; but these did not differ fnun those of the Herring Gull. 

 Nearly all the birds met with on the IVtchora were in tlu' adult plumage. 



Wherever a party of fisluuinen was stationed there were sure to be plenty of tlicsc 

 Gidls. They hovered over the nets as they were being dragged in, and frequently 

 secured the small fish as these attempted to escajie. 



Mr. Seebohm, in his paper on tin' Ornithology of Siberia ("Ibis," 1879, p. 1<'>-\ 

 mentions that they did not hud this Gidl breeding until after the jtarty had rcaclicil 

 latitude 69°. Its geographical distribution, as studied in the Museum of St. Vetcrs- 

 burg, .appears to show that it breeds in the extrente north of lC\irope' ami in K;iin- 

 tschatka. It has been obtained, iu the breeding-season, on r>ear Island, south of 

 Solovctsk, in the White Sea, on the IVtchora, on the Ob, on the Yenesei, on tlic 

 Boganidaand the Taimyr, near Nintheast Cape, and iu Kamtschatka. In its spring 

 and autumn migrations it has been fouml in the Caspian Sea, and at Ayan. in tlic 

 Sea of Okotsk. Seebohm states that it is described as not being uncommon at iSt. 

 Michael's, m Alaska ; but this requires confirmation. 



