310 LAllIU^. 



Philosophical Magazine/ vol. v, p. 299. The 'Magazine of 

 Zoology and Botany' (vol. i. p. 460) contained a full notice of 

 the first two birds ; and aU additional information procured down 

 to 1838 was brought together and published in the sixth part of the 

 second series of Jardine and Selby's ' Illustrations of Ornithology.' 

 The whole matter may be repeated here. The following was read 

 before the Linnean Society, on the 15th of April, 1834 : — "On 

 the present occasion I have not only the high satisfaction of 

 enriching the British Tauna, by adding to it the beautiful Larus 

 SaMni, so lately discovered, but of describing the species in the 

 plumage of the first year, in which attire it has never before come 

 under the inspection of the ornithologist. The bird now exhibited 

 was shot in Belfast Bay, on the 18th of September, 1822, by the late 

 John Montgomery, Esq., of Locust Lodge, wdio carefuUy preserved 

 it, under the impression that it was an individual of the closely- 

 allied species Larus minutus, by which name it was distinguished, 

 when presented in April 1833 to the Natural History Society of 

 Belfast. Mr. Montgomery informed me, that from the diminutive 

 size, &c., of this bird when first seen by him, he had no doubt 

 of its rarity. It was so unwary as to alight once or twice within 

 twenty yards of him ; but, to avoid disfiguring it, he fired from 

 so great a distance, that it was only at the third shot eventually 

 obtained. That the species is regardless of the report of a gun, 

 was witnessed by Captain Sabine, in its breeding-haunts within 

 the arctic circle, as he states, that ' when one bird of a pair was 

 killed, its mate, though frequently fired at, continued on wing 

 close to the spot where it lay.' 



" Although the Larus Sabini closely approximates the Larus 

 miniihis in general appearance, the plumage of the first year, as 

 well as that of maturity, being very similar in both species, the 

 superior size of the L. Salnni, its tail being forked to the depth 

 of an inch, and the comparatively greater length of its tibia and 

 tarsus, may always (even in a preserved state) afford sufficient 

 specific distinction. In the form of the tail, the L, Sabhii 

 approaches the typical species of Sterna more nearly than its 

 congener, the L. minutus. The latter, however, resembles that 



