55 



CUNEATE-TAILED GULL. 



RHODOSTETHIA ROSEA {Macg.). 



Larus roseus, Macgillivray , Mem. Wem. Soc. v. p. 249 



(1824). 

 Rliodostctliia rossii, Macg. v. p. 618. 

 Larus rossii, Narnn. xiii. pt, 2, p. 270. 

 Rhodostethia rosea, YaiT. ed. 4, iii. p. 597; Dresser, viii. 



p. 343. 



It is perhaps superfluous to state that I am totally 

 unacquainted personally with this very rare Arctic bird, 

 whose claim to a place in the British list rests upon a 

 single occurrence, of which I transcribe the details from 

 the fourth edition of ' Yarrell's British Birds,' vol. iii. 

 p. 580, as supplied to the 'Zoologist' by Mr. Henry 

 Milner, who states that the Lesser Gull was killed by 

 Horner, Lord Howden's head keeper, in February, 1847, 

 in a ploughed field, near the hamlet of Milton-cum- 

 Kirby, in the parish of Kirby. Its flight resembled, 

 according to Horner's account, the flight of any other 

 Gull, and it did not seem at all shy. Some doubt appears 

 to attach to the above account, but, as Mr. Howard 

 Saunders writes, " inasmuch as this Arctic species has 

 undoubtedly wandered in winter to Heligoland and the 



