BHODOSTETHIA. XEMA. 261 



Land, Hviten Land, Bering Strait, Melville Peninsula, and 

 the Gulf of Bothnia. In winter it moves southward visiting 

 the New Siberia Islands in September, and the Anadyr 

 Peninsula, Kamchatka, Alaska, and west Greenland. It is 

 accidental in the Faeroes and Heligoland, and has recently- 

 been recorded from Vendee in France. 



Genus XEMA Leach in Ross' Voy. Baffin's Bay, 1st 4to ed. 

 1819, App. ii. p. Ivii. 



Type : X. sabinii (Sabine). 



Xema, a fancy name, apparently devoid of meaning; possibly wrongly 

 ■derived from x'lhV^ ^ shell-fish. 



Xema sabinii. Sabine's Gull. 



Larus sabini Sabine, Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. 1819, p. 522, 

 pi. 29 : west coast o£ Greenland. 



Xema sabinii (Saline) ; B. 0. U. List, 1st ed. 1883, p. 193 ; 

 Saunders, Cat. Birds B. M. xxv. 1896, p. 162 ; id. Manual, 

 2nd ed. 1899, p. 657. 



Sabinii, named by Joseph Sabine in honour of his cousin, Genl. Sir Edward 

 'Sabine (1788-1883), whodiscovered the species on the west coast of Greenland 

 in 1818. 



Distribution in the British Islands. — An Occasional Visitor 

 in autumn and winter, especially to the east coast o£ England, 

 where it occurs almost annually on the coasts of Yorkshire 

 and Norfolk. It is rare in Scotland, but has occun-ed rather 

 more frequently in Ireland, where about twelve examples have 

 heen recorded. Birds in adult plumage are seldom obtained. 



General Distribution. — A circumpolar species, Sabine's 

 Gull breeds locally on the Arctic coasts and islands of northern 

 Europe and Asia, from Spitsbergen to eastern Siberia and in 

 Arctic North America, from Alaska to Greenland. In winter 

 it moves farther south along the western shores of Europe, 

 to northern France, where it is not an uncommon visitor. 

 In America it ranges to the Bermudas and Texas, and is 

 common on the coast of Peru to about 12° S. latitude. 

 It is accidental in Switzerland and Austria-Hungary. 



