Sabine's Gull. 57 



This species derives its trivial name from Captain Sabine, who discovered it 

 on the west coast of Greenland, during the North- West Passage Expedition, of 

 which he was so distinguished a member. 



Sabine's Gull is an arctic and sub-arctic breeder, not nesting, however, lower 

 than about 7 2° N. latitude. During the winter it migrates to less severe regions. 

 In the eastern hemisphere it is found on all its northern coasts and islands, except 

 Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land ; in the western hemisphere it descends 

 along the Atlantic coasts nearly to the Tropic of Cancer, and on the Pacific side 

 as far as 12 S. latitude. 



In its summer or breeding plumage, the female is in every way similar — as 

 it is also in size — to the male. The entire head to below the nape, and down in 

 front to the upper breast, slate blue circumscribed by a distinct narrow border of 

 deep black ; the lower neck down to the upper back white, washed with pale 

 lavender ; the whole of the under surface of the body below the collar, the rump, 

 the upper tail-coverts and the tail pure white ; the back, the wing-coverts and 

 inner secondaries (the tips of the latter and the greater wing-coverts, to more than 

 half their length, white) lavender-grey ; the outer lesser wing-coverts, the 

 primary-coverts, and the outer five primaries, black (giving a black edge to the 

 whole external margin of the wing) ; the primaries are tipped with white, " having 

 the inner half of the web longitudinally white, but this not reaching to the end 

 of the quill on the first five primaries ; the black much diminished on the next 

 two primaries ; the inner primaries and the secondaries being white " (Sharpe) ; 

 bill black at the base, above and below ; yellow on the anterior part of the upper, 

 and orange on the corresponding part of the lower, mandible ; a vermilion ring 

 round the eye, with a white spot below it ; legs and feet blackish-brown. Length 

 13 inches, ridge of beak it; wing 11; tail 45 (fork is); tarsus it; middle toe 

 and its claw if. 



In examples a year before reaching maturity, writes Mr. Howard Saunders, 

 " the white tips to the outer primaries are less conspicuous, and there is a consider- 

 able amount of black on the sixth primary from the outside." 



Sabine's Gull builds about the middle of June or the beginning of July, laying 

 its eggs sometimes on the bare ground, sometimes in a slight depression made by 

 its body, among such scanty herbage, growing or collected, as the region it has 

 selected can provide. The birds nest together in small colonies, a few feet distant 

 from each other, often in association with Terns. Sir John Richardson records that 

 this Gull was breeding on an island where he was camped, and that the eggs 

 were laid in hollows on the short mossy turf. They rarely exceed two in number, 

 and are a little over ii inches in length by ii in breadth. I11 ground-colour 



Vol. VI. K 



