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ON SOME GULLS OBSERVED IN IRELAND. 



By Robert Warren. 

 Iceland Gulls (Larus leucopterus) in Cork Harbour. 



For a long period of years I have had frequent oppor- 

 tunities of observing and capturing specimens of the Iceland 

 Gull, and as I was particular in noting the dates and localities 

 of the various occurrences, a copy of my notes may interest 

 those readers of ' The Zoologist ' who may not be personally 

 conversant with the appearance and habits of this Arctic visitor, 

 one of the most beautiful of the large Gulls, and certainly the 

 most elegant and graceful in form and flight. When seen on the 

 wing it is easily distinguished from its larger neighbour, the 

 Glaucous, by its gracefully buoyant and gliding mode of flight, 

 so different from the slower, heavier flight of that bird, similar 

 to that of the Great Black-backed Gull. In its habits, so far as 

 my experience goes, it is not a carrion-feeder like the Glaucous — 

 I have never seen it feeding on carrion of any kind. I have often 

 seen the Iceland Gull resting in pasture fields in company with 

 the smaller Gulls, a habit I have never seen adopted by the 

 Glaucous, which keeps nearly altogether to the shores and sands. 

 The Iceland Gull I have often seen with the smaller Gulls in the 

 fields following the ploughman, feeding on the worms and grubs 

 turned up by the plough. 



On one occasion an immature bird haunted one of my 

 ploughed fields for over a month, day after day, only going to 

 the estuary to drink and wash. From its great tameness I did 

 not wish to shoot it, but tried to take it alive on a baited hook ; 

 this was easily managed, but unfortunately the poor bird was so 

 hungry that in swallowing the bait the hook became firmly fixed 

 in the gullet, and being unable to extricate it safely, I was obliged 

 to put the bird out of pain, and sent the specimen to the Dublin 

 Natural History Society, thus disappointing me in the wish to 

 send a live specimen to the Dublin Zoological Gardens. 



I first became acquainted with the Iceland Gull in Cork Har- 

 bour, a " flight " having visited it, in the winter of 1848-1849, 



