460 Contributions to the 



own collection, is conversant with such subjects,) but to Mr Glen- 

 nan, the bird preserver, by whom they were set up. Their having 

 been skinned by an unskilful person, who left some of the flesh ad- 

 hering to the skin without applying any preservative to it, proved 

 their comparatively recent state to more than one sense. 



The history of these birds, as just given, was related to me when 

 I first saw them ; but I did not feel myself warranted in thus bring- 

 ing it forward, without having the direct testimony of Mr Massey. 

 Both specimens are in mature plumage. This is, I believe, the first 

 record of the occurrence of the S. slolida in Europe. 



Larus Sabinii. 



On the present occasion I have not only the high satisfaction of 

 enriching the British Fauna, by adding to it the beautiful Larus 

 Sabinii, so lately discovered, but of describing the species in the 

 plumage of the first year, in which attire it has never come under 

 the inspection of the ornithologist. The bird now exhibited was 

 shot in Belfast Bay, on the 18th September 1822, by the late John 

 Montgomery, Esq. of Locust Lodge, who carefully preserved it, 

 under the impression that it was an individual of the closely allied 

 species Larus minutus, by which name it was distinguished, when 

 presented in April 1833 to the Natural History Society of Belfast. 

 Mr Montgomery informed me, that from the diminutive size, &c 

 of this bird when first seen by him, he had no doubt of its rarity. 

 It was so unwary as to alight once or twice within twenty yards of 

 him ; but, to avoid disfiguring it, he fired from so great a distance, 

 that it was only at the third shot eventually obtained. That the 

 species is regardless of the report of a gun, was witnessed by Cap- 

 tain Sabine in its breeding haunts, within the arctic circle, as he 

 states, that " when one bird of a pair was killed, its mate, though 

 frequently fired at, continued on wing close to the spot where it lay." 



Although the Larus Sabinii closely approximates the Larus mi- 

 nutus in general appearance, the plumage of the first year, as well 

 as that of maturity, being very similar in both species, the superior 

 size of the L. Sabinii, its tail being forked to the depth of an inch, 

 and the comparatively greater length of its tibia and tarsus, may 

 always (even in a preserved state) afford sufficient specific distinc- 

 tion. In the form of the tail, the L. Sabinii approaches the typical 

 species of Sterna more nearly than its congener, the L. minutus. 

 The latter, however, resembles that genus more in the form of the 

 bill, and in the dimensions of the tarsus and tibia. 



In this specimen of the L. Sabinii, in the autumnal plumage of the 



