THE ICELAND GULL. 387 



on the British shores. The month of June seems a late period 

 for the Iceland gull to remain in such a comparatively southern 

 latitude; and there can hardly be a doubt that it is the same 

 species which is seen about Ballantrae every winter, as the 

 authority for the statement must evidently know it well from its 

 congeners, when he correctly states that it does not breed on 

 Ailsa Craig." 



On the 2nd of April, 1840, the same kind friend (John Sin- 

 claire, Esq.) brought me from Ballantrae a second specimen, 

 which was shot there a few days before that time. It is in the 

 same plumage as the former one, or in that which Mr. Selby 

 describes after two general autumnal moultings have been under- 

 gone (vol. ii. p. 504). Mr. Sinclaire informs me that when at 

 Brodick Castle, in the island of Arran (Frith of Clyde), many 

 years ago, he saw about six or eight gulls, which he is certain 

 were of this species, and in proof of his correctness gives the 

 "circumstantial evidence" that they were almost as tame as 

 domestic fowl, and were stationed on a manure heap before a still. 

 Although on a very near approach they took wing, they returned 

 immediately on the party going out of the way : he was told that 

 they had frequented the place for a long time. 



Taber's very full and interesting account of the Iceland gull, 

 in his ' Prodromus of the Ornithology of Iceland ' — a work 

 difficult to be procured — is judiciously copied by Mr. Yarrell, in 

 the third volume of his ' British Birds." 



The Iceland gull is said to be numerous in the high arctic 

 regions of both hemispheres. To Iceland, even, it is only a winter 

 visitant (Faber). It is in Scotland and England, as well as 

 Ireland, a bird of only rare and occasional occurrence. 



