7750 Birds., 



Owing to the stormy weather I was unable to procure a specimen so 

 as to identify the species, and did not succeed in finding their 

 breeding-place. None of the inhabitants questioned by me had ever 

 found the egg or knew anything about their breeding-place. 



Arctic Skua {Lestris arcticus). Also very abundant in the Straits, 

 but not found breeding. 



Great Blackbacked Gull [Larus marinus). This beautiful and 

 powerful gull we found breeding, on almost all the grassy islands north 

 of Romaine, in greater abundance as we approached the Straits. I 

 saw nothing in its habits not already well known. 1 am sure, how- 

 ever, that it has been represented as much more rapacious and tyran- 

 nical than it deserves to be. On Greenlet Island, which T have 

 already mentioned as the abode of great numbers of eider ducks, I 

 found twenty-two nests of this bird ; among the number one not a foot 

 from the nest of an eider, both containing eggs. I did not see a 

 single egg-shell or any appearance of any eggs having been destroyed 

 by the gulls. On all the islands where the herring gulls breed this 

 species is found in greater or less numbers, apparently on as good 

 terms with them as with its own species. 1 saw no peculiarity in its 

 flight, and have often watched one for some time to ascertain what 

 species it belonged to, before a good look of his black back be- 

 trayed it. 



The nest is much oftener placed on the bare rock than that of the 

 following species, and is not unfVequently found singly on some small 

 rocky island, which the other never is. The eggs are three in num- 

 ber, and are generally easily distinguished liom those of the herring 

 gull by the colour as well as size. The spots are generally fewer in 

 number and much larger, and this is almost a specific character. 



Silvery Gull {Larus argentatus). This bird was not found by Au- 

 dubon breeding anywhere on the coast of Labrador. I can hardly 

 attempt to account for this. It is difficult to believe that a bird, now 

 one of the most abundant on the coast, breeding on nearly all the 

 grassy islands, and which the inhabitants state to have always been 

 abundant, could have been overlooked by Audubon ; still this is the 

 most pi'obable supposition, and he mentions, as a fact, something that 

 would seem to favour this view, namely, that the blackbacked gulls 

 change their plumage so as to resemble large herring gulls.* I visited 



* " The most remarkable circumstance relative to tbese birds is that they either 

 associate with another species, giving rise to a hybrid brood, or that when very old 

 they lose the dark colour of the back, which is then of the same tint as that of the 

 Larus arj^enlalus, or even lighter." — Audubon, ' Birds of America,' Svo, vol. vii. p. 178. 



