320 LARIDiE, 



" The species was first distinctly characterized in the ' Pauna 

 Boreali- Americana/ of Richardson and Swainson, in 1831. It 

 is mentioned in that work (p. 425) as ' common in all parts of 

 the fur countries, where it associates with the terns, and is dis- 

 tinguished by its peculiar shrill and plaintive cry/ Mr. Audubon 

 ('Orn. Biog.' vol. iv. p, 212, 1838) informs us, that he first 

 met with this bird in August, when crossing the Ohio at Cincin- 

 nati, and subsequently shot a specimen in November, on the 

 Mississippi, a few miles below the mouth of the Arkansas. In 

 Chesapeake Bay after the first of April, and at the harbour of 

 Passamoudy (Maine) in May, he saw them in great abund- 

 ance : — at the latter place his son killed seventeen at one dis- 

 charge of his double-barreled gun. It is added that ' none of 

 them were observed on any part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 or on the coast of Labrador or Newfoundland, and that in winter 

 this species is common in the harbour of Charleston, but none 

 are seen at that season near the mouths of the Mississippi.'' This 

 author subsequently 'found in London a pair of these birds 

 * ^ * which had been brought from Greenland.' 



"The occurrence of this North American bird in Europe 

 affords another opportunity for speculating whether birds can 

 really cross the Atlantic, which some of the best ornithologists 

 in Europe did not, at least a few years ago, believe to be possible. 

 In my opinion, as fully stated on former occasions when noticing 

 the occurrence of American birds in Ireland, the presumptive or 

 circumstantial evidence is aU in favour of their having really 

 crossed the ocean."^ 



" In the estuary, about three miles from where the Larus Bona- 

 partii was shot, the first individual also of 



Larus Sahiui, . 



known to visit the European coasts, was met with ; and at the 

 opposite side of the bay a second example was afterwards ob- 



"* See Yellow-billed American Cuckoo {Coccyzus Americanus) in 'Annals,' 

 vol. ix. p. 226, and American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus) in same work, 

 vol. xvii. p. 94. — [In Vols. I. and II. 'Nat. Hist. Ireland.'] 



