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GLAUCOUS GULL OR BURGOMASTER. 



-^ Larus glauctts, Brunn. 

 PLATE CCCCXLIX— Adult Male, and Young. 



I found this species on the coast of Labrador in very small numbers, all 

 paired, in the month of July; but our endeavours to discover their nests 

 were unavailing, and their shyness, which surpassed even that of the Great 

 Black-backed Gull, prevented us from seeing much of their habits. I have 

 never met with one on any part of our Atlantic coast, and I am much dis- 

 posed to believe that those which may retire from the Arctic regions, where 

 they are numerous, follow the north-west shores of America, as is indeed 

 the case with many of the hyperborean birds, they giving an unaccountable 

 preference to that side of the continent. It is true that I have often been 

 told at Boston and New York that the Glaucous Gull had not unfrequently 

 been procured there; but in no instance could I place any reliance upon the 

 report, for when the supposed Glaucous Gull was shown to me, it proved to 

 be merely a large specimen of the Herring Gull, Larus argentatus. Dr. 

 Richardson, who had good opportunities of observing this bird, speaks of it 

 as follows: — 



"This large and powerful Gull inhabits Greenland, the Polar Seas, Baffin's 

 Bay, and the adjoining straits and coasts, in considerable numbers, during 

 the summer. Its winter resorts in America have not been mentioned by 

 authors; and the Prince of Musignano informs us, that it is exceedingly 

 rare in the United States. It is notoriously greedy and voracious, preying 

 not only on fish and small birds, but on carrion of every kind. One speci- 

 men killed on Captain Ross' expedition disgorged an auk when it was struck, 

 and proved, on dissection, to have another in its stomach. Unless when 

 impelled to exertion by hunger, it is rather a shy, inactive bird, and has little 

 of the clamorousness of others of the genus. There is a considerable variety 

 in the size of individuals. Captain Sabine found most of his specimens 

 smaller than the L. marinus, but the largest individual of either species 

 which he met with, was a male of L. glaucus, killed in Barrow's Strait. 

 Its length was thirty-two inches; extent of wing sixty-five inches; weight 

 four pounds and a quarter. Its tarsus was three inches and a half long, and 

 its bill, which was prodigiously strong and arched, measured upwards of four 



