Birds. 1783 



" The sight of the gull enables me to send you so many references to this species 

 that any remarks from me will be superfluous, beyond noticing that, as far as I 

 am aware, it is not only a very rare bird, but also quite new to our British Catalogue. 

 This last remark may require explanation, because Mr. William Macgillivray includes 

 this species in his ' Manual of British Ornithology,' with the remark that " this species 

 has once occurred in Ireland.'' — Vol. ii. p. 254. 



" I remember some years ago to have seen a notice in print, that this bird had been 

 once taken in Ireland, but from the countries visited or known to the writer of that 

 notice, and from the circumstance that this species had only occurred in high northern 

 latitudes, I came to the conclusion that the printer had made a mistake of one letter, 

 and that for Ireland, we ought to read Iceland. Add to this, that the birds of Ireland 

 have been carefully worked out by Mr. Thompson, of Belfast, who is one of the best 

 authorities for Irish birds, and this species is not included by him in his ' Fauna of 

 Ireland.'" 



The following are the references to this species, which Mr. Yarrell is so good as to 

 supply at the end of his letter. 



Larus Rossii. 



Ross's Rosy Gull — Cuneate-tailed Gull — Wedge-tailed Gull, &c, first noticed by 



Dr. Richardson in a paper read by the Wernerian Society, in January, 1824. 



Fauna Boreali-Americana, Swains, and Rich., 1831 ... page 427. sp. 192. 



Nuttall's Man. Ornith. of U. S. and Canada, 1834 ... page 295 and 296. 



Audubon's Ornith. Biog. 1839 vol. 5. page 324. 



„ Synopsis of Birds of N. A. 1839 page 323. sp. 442. 



Macgillivray's Man. of Brit. Ornith. 1842 vol. 2. page 252. 



Audubon's Birds of America vol 7. page 296. 



Richardson's App. to Parry's Second Voyage page 359. 



Ross's App. to Parry's Polar Voyage P a g" e 195. 



Appendix to Ross's Last Voyage, 1835 page 36. sp. 26. 



Wilson's Illust. Zool. vol i. pi. 8. 

 Jardine and Selby Orn. Illust. p. 1. plate 14. 



See also Gray and Mitchell's Genera of Birds, part 19, Nov. 1845, for a figure 

 on plate 180 of the head and form of the tail. 

 The Fauna Boreali-Americana, not being accessible to me, I consulted Audubon's 

 American Ornithological Biography, of which there is a copy in the library of the So- 

 ciety. Under the head of Larus Rossii, Audubon remarks that he has never met with 

 " this beautiful little gull," and that he is consequently obliged to quote the following 



I description from Dr. Richardson's work : — 

 " Cuneate-tailed gull, with a pearl-gray mantle. Wings longer than the cunei- 

 i form tail. The outer web of the first tail-feather blackish ; a slender black bill, tarsi 



ian inch long, and, as well as the feet, vermillion red. 

 "Two specimens of this gull were killed on the coast of Melville Peninsula, on 

 Sir Edward Parry's second voyage, one of which is preserved in the Museum of the 

 University of Edinburgh, and the other was presented to Joseph Sabine, Esq. No 

 other examples are known to exist in collections ; but Commander Ross, in his 

 Zoological Appendix to Sir Edward Parry's narrative of his most adventurous boat- 

 voyage towards the Pole, relates that several were seen during the journey over the ice 

 north of Spitzbergen, and that Lieutenant Forster also found the species in Waygait 

 Straits, which is probably one of its breeding-places. It is to Commander Ross, who 



