LARID^. 371 



varying greatly in size and colour — olive, stone, and green 

 being the ground-colours, on which are more or less 

 numerous spots and blotches of dark umber-brown. 

 Occasionally varieties are met with which are either red 

 all over, or green, without a single blotch. The young 

 birds are covered with down when they first emerge from 

 the shell, and remain for some little time in the nest. 



Ivory Gull. PagoiiMla ehurnea (Phipps). 



An accidental visitor, of extremely rare occurrence. The snow-white 

 plu.ua2:e of this beautiful Gull when adult sufficient!}' indicates that 

 its abode is among the Polar ice, and few have seen it in its home beside 

 the whaler or the Arctic explorer. Very rarely indeed it strays to the 

 south, and the only Devonshire example we know of was shot when in 

 an exhausted condition at Torquaj' on January 18th, 1853, and is now 

 in the Tor(]uay Museum, where we have examined it, finding it to be in 

 the immature spotted jdumage (E. B., Zool. 1853, p. 38u7). According 

 to Dr. Bullmore, an Ivory Gull was seen by Mr. W. P. Cocks near 

 Falmouth on Feb. 13, 1847, and one was shot near Quilquay, by Mr. 

 Olive, watchmaker. Mr. E. H. Rodd had one in his collection, in imma- 

 ture plumage, which was shot from the Pier Head, Penzance, two days 

 later than Mr. Cocks had seen his bird at Falmouth, and probably was 

 the same. Mr. Cecil Smith states that Mrs. Turle, who some years ago 

 stuffed birds at Taunton, " had one or two Somersetshire specimens of 

 this bird through her hands, one of them killed, I think she told me, in 

 the marsli when it was flooded : but I am not quite certain about this." 

 AVe never saw either of these specimens, nor do we know to whom they 

 belonged. Vast numbers of Gulls collect in the bay at Weston-super- 

 Mare, following the schools of sprats which are abundant in the muddy 

 shallows in the winter-time, and many are caught in gins baited with fish 

 and placed upon the rocks, and in this manner, in the winter of 18(!4, a 

 beautiful adult Ivory Gull was taken, which was kept alive for some time 

 by Mr. Augustus Stone, a bird-stuffer in the town. Unfortunately, this 

 most interesting bird was found one day dead in a fresh-made heap of 

 mortar, with its plumage completely ruined. Within the last fifty years, 

 according to Mr. ]^raiisel-Pleydell, six examples of the Ivory Gull have 

 been secured on the Dorsetshire coast, but it is not stated in what plumage. 



The Ivory Gull nests in the extreme north, and its eggs are almost 

 unknown to collectors. 



Kittiwake. Bissa tridacfyla (Linn.). 



[llaeklet or Hacket Gull, Tarrock (young).] 

 Resident and abundant, breeding in large numbers on Lundy I.-.laiul, 



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