Periodical 
visitant. 
494 NATATORES. LARUS. KITTIWAKE. 
Dr Fiemrnc, in his History of British Animals, has given 
the Kittiwake as a resident species, but has not mentioned 
any authority for the statement. My own observations, I 
must confess, are at variance with this assertion, nor do I find 
that it has been admitted as such by any other of our orni- 
thological writers. It appears, on the contrary, to be a sum- 
mer visitant, making its first appearance upon our coasts 
about the end of April, and departing soon after the duties 
of reproduction have been effected, that is, in the early au- 
tumnal months. Its distribution, during its sojourn with us, 
is confined to the coast of Scotland and some of the northern 
English counties, and, from the facts I have been able to col- 
lect, it seems to be more abundant upon the eastern than on 
the opposite side of the kingdom, which may perhaps be at- 
tributed to the line of its migrative flight from the eastern 
parts of Europe, to which shores the great body of those that 
breed here seem to retire in winter. In the south of Eng- 
land it is of very rare occurrence, and Monracu mentions 
only two instances in which it had come under his observa- 
tion. It is a bird of wide distribution, extending over the 
greater part of Europe up to very high latitudes, over the 
northern regions of Asia, a great portion of the North Ame- 
rican continent (where RicHarpson says it abounds on the 
lakes in the interior of the fur countries), and the coasts of 
the Pacific, as well as the shores of the Arctic Seas, to which 
latter it annually retires to breed. It differs from the more 
typical Gulls in the imperfect development of its hind toe, 
which is small, and without any claw, on which account it 
has been made the type of a genus called Rissa by Mr Srr- 
PHENS. ‘The tarsi are also shorter and weaker in proportion: 
to its bulk, and the legs are placed further behind the centre 
of the body, in which points it approaches to the Petrels, 
and connects the Gulls more immediately with that. group. 
Its habits are also rather similar to the former, for unlike to 
Larus canus, L. ridibundus, and some others, it never ad- 
vances inland in search of worms, grubs, &c., but procures 
