660 WEDGE-TAILED GULL. 
on the Chukchi Peninsula, Bering Strait, in July 1879. In October 
of the same year, Newcomb, naturalist to the ill-fated ‘Jeannette,’ 
killed eight off the north-east of Siberia, and during the fearful 
march of the starving, shipwrecked crew to the Lena, he saved 
three skins by carrying them inside his shirt beneath his belt; 
and a few others have since been obtained at the mouth of the 
above river. The American Expedition to Point Barrow in Alaska 
found this species during September and October of the years 1881 
and of 1882 in large numbers, pointing to the probability of there 
being an important breeding-place somewhere to the northward of 
Wrangel Island. An adult was obtained on Bering Island in De- 
cember 1895; Mr. E. Nelson procured a bird at St. Michaels, Alaska; 
and an example in breeding-dress, one of two sent from Disco, 
Greenland, in 1885, was presented by the late Mr. Seebohm to the 
British Museum. In August 1894, Dr. Nansen’s party in the ‘ Fram’ 
obtained eight birds of the year in about lat. 81° N. and long. 130° 
E.; while in July and August 1895 the intrepid explorer observed 
many adults, especially round four islands named Hvitenland, in 
lat. 81° N. and long. 63° E., doubtless a breeding-place. 
Statements that the egg had been taken with the Disco birds in 
1885 (P.Z.S. 1886, p. 82; Auk 1886, p. 273) are unconfirmed, and 
the circumstances, description, and a coloured photograph of the 
egg in question, all indicate that it was probably that of Sabine’s 
Gull. Until the above appearance of flocks at Point Barrow, only 
23 specimens of the bird were ascertained to be in existence. The 
flight is described as peculiarly graceful and wavering; the cry is 
compared to that of the Wryneck by Dr. Nansen. A bird which he 
shot vomited two shrimps. 
The adult in summer has head and neck white, with a few black 
feathers near the eye, and a narrow collar of the same colour ; 
otherwise the head, neck, and entire under-parts are white, suffused 
with rose-colour ; mantle pale pearl-grey ; outer web of first primary 
black, secondaries and inner primaries grey, tipped with rosy-white ; 
tail wedge-shaped and pure white; bill black (even smaller than 
represented in the engraving) ; legs and feet red. Length 13°5 in. ; 
wing 10°25 in. In winter there is no black collar. By September 21st 
the young bird is pearl-grey on the crown and nape as well as on 
the mantle, though the wing-coverts, inner secondaries, and rump are 
barred with buff-tipped umber-brown ; the three outer primaries are 
black on both sides of the shafts, and all up to the 7th are tipped 
or barred with the same colour ; the central and projecting feathers 
of the tail are terminally banded with blackish-brown. 
