102 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



Fa»dly-LARID/£. Subfamily— LARINsE. 



Kittiwake Gull. 



Rissa tridadyla, LlNN. 



THE Kitti wakes have been separated from the true Gulls — i.e., those of the 

 genus Larus, to which all the species we have been describing have 

 belonged — into a genus by themselves (containing two species, a red legged and 

 a dark legged form) . Rissa, is distinguished by the short tarsus ; but chiefly by the 

 rudimentary condition of the hind toe ; the arched bill ; the slightly forked tail ; 

 and by the young having a plumage quite unlike that of the adult or of other 

 species of Larina. The name ' tridactyla ', or three toed, is not strictly correct, 

 as the first toe, though very small, is present. 



The Kittiwake — so named from its cry — is during summer one of the most 

 common gulls in the British Isles, where there are suitable places for it. These 

 suitable places are localities where there are " several precipices," for it will build 

 almost nowhere else. Where tall "stacks" and a bold precipitous coast occur, 

 there pretty certainly will a colony of Kittiwakes be found, and as a rule in 

 enormous numbers. It is vain to look for its nest on low sandy shores. It is 

 more abundant, however, in Scotland and in Ireland than in England, because in 

 the former countries the skerries and outlying rocks are more numerous. Lundy 

 Island, Flamborough Head, and the Fame Islands are well recognized English 

 colonies. The Hebrides, the Orkney and Shetland Isles, the " Rowans," near 

 Wick, the Bass Rock, the Bullers of Buchan, and St. Abb's Head harbour 

 hundreds of thousands of these birds. In Ireland, the cliffs near Horn Head, the 

 skerries off Portrush, Bills rock off Achill Island, the Great Isle of Arran, in 

 Galway Bay, and Bull Island off the coast of Cork, are well known haunts of 

 this pretty species. 



The range of this Gull in summer is very wide. It has been found breeding 

 as far north as man has penetrated, previous to Nansen, who does not, however, 

 record it at his " Farthest " north, all round the shores of the Polar seas of the 

 eastern hemisphere, and as low as the north west of France. In the western 

 hemisphere it extends across the whole of North America except at one or two 

 points, whence it has not yet been recorded, but where no doubt it will yet be 



