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nests are placed close together, facing the sea. This nursery 
is betiveen the 70 th and 80 th degree of north latitude. 
The food of the Ivory Gull consists in fish and dead and 
putrid matter; it is particularly fond of the blubber of 
whales, and the remains of those animals that have been left 
by the fishermen. When a whale is being cut up, parties of 
Ivory Gulls congregate to take their share of the prize, and 
at such times it is no difficult matter to shoot many of them ; 
they may also be caught by means of a hook and line baited 
with a piece of fat of any kind. Temminck names a single 
instance of an Ivory Gull having been obtained on the Dutch 
coast. 
The flight of the present species is easy and graceful, but 
not by far so swift as that of most other gulls ; the bird 
frequently alights both on floating ice and on the water, but 
it does not walk very often, or at all easily or well. During 
the winter months this bird wanders southward, keeping up 
with the open water; and parties numbering from thirty to 
fifty associate together on the open sea. Their numbers are 
said to be at no period so great as those of other gulls. 
The entire length of the Ivory Gull is from sixteen to 
seventeen inches, and in some specimens rather more ; the 
wing from the carpus to the tip, twelve inches nine lines ; the 
tarsus one inch six lines ; the middle toe one inch seven lines ; 
the beak from the forehead sixteen lines, from the gape 
twenty-one lines. 
The adult bird in summer plumage is entirely white, with 
a tinge of rose colour in the living specimens ; the beak is 
yellow at the tip, and olivaceous grey at the basal half ; the 
legs are black ; the eye yellow ; the eyelid bright red. 
The plumage after the first autumnal moult is white, with 
the following distinct markings ; the forehead and chin are 
pale bluish black ; the nape and back of the neck are finely 
