LARIDA. 657 
SABINE’S GULL. 
X£MA SABI{NII (Joseph Sabine). 
This small fork-tailed Gull is one of the species which were 
first recognized in the United Kingdom by Thompson, who de- 
scribed an immature example shot in Belfast Bay in September 
1822, Since that date more than a dozen specimens ‘have been 
taken in Ireland; while many others are on record from various 
counties of England and Wales, with a few from Scotland. All 
of them have occurred from August to December, and, with the 
exception of six in summer-plumage obtained or observed, respec- 
tively, in Yorkshire, the Island of Mull, Kent, Hants, Cornwall, and 
on the coast of East Lothian, they have proved to be young birds. 
This almost circumpolar species was not noticed in Norway before 
October 1886, nor until 1892 in Holland, but it has long been 
known as a visitor to the islands and shores of the North Sea and 
the north of France, while stragglers have reached Switzerland and 
even Austro-Hungary. It was discovered on the Expedition of 1818 
in search of a North-west passage, by the late Sir Edward Sabine, 
who found it nesting in lat. 75° 29’ on the west side of Green- 
land ; and it is now known to breed throughout the Arctic regions 
of America, from Baffin Bay to Alaska. Thence it can be traced 
across the high latitudes of Eastern Siberia as far as the Taimyr 
Peninsula, where Middendorff obtained its eggs. It has not yet 
been recorded from Novaya Zemlya or Franz Josef Land; but 
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