NATATORES. 429 



and is entitled to be enumerated amongst the European as well as the American 

 birds. It arrives in the high northern latitudes in June, and retires to the 

 southward in August. Specimens procured in June and July corresponded 

 exactly with the one described below. When newly killed they had all a delicate 

 pink blush on their under plumage. The eggs, two in number, are deposited 

 on the bare ground, and are hatched in the last week of July. They are an 

 inch and a half in length, and have an olive colour with many brown blotches. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Colour. — Head and upper part of the throat blackish-grey, bounded by a velvet-black 

 collar. Mantle bluish-grey. The anterior border of the wing, primary coverts, and first five 

 primaries pitch-black, the latter broadly bordered anteriorly with white nearly to their tips. 

 The rest of the primaries *, the greater part of the secondary coverts, the ends of the second- 

 aries, tips of the tertiaries and scapulars, with the neck, tail, and whole under plumage, pure 

 white. Bill black, with a yellow tip. Inside of the mouth and edges of the eyelids vermilion- 

 red. Irides black. Legs and feet black. 



Form. — Bill with the upper mandible a little curved at the point, and a conspicuous salient 

 angle on the lower one. It is much smaller than the bills of L. ridibundus and L. tridac- 

 tylus, but twice as stout as that of L. Rossii. The wings are an inch longer than the tail, 

 which is forked about an inch deep. The nail of the hind toe is very small. 



The winter plumage, and that of the young are still unknown. 









Dimensions. 













Inch. 



Lin. 





Inch. 



Lin. 





Inch. Lin 



Length, total 



13 



6 



Length of naked thigh 







9 



Length of inner nail . 



. o 2' 



,, of tail 



5 







,, of tarsus 



. 1 



4 



,, of hind toe 



. H 



„ of wing 



11 







,, of middle toe . 



1 



Oh 



,, of its nail 



. OJ 



„ of bill above 



. 1 







,, of middle nail 



. 



2 



Depth of fork of tail 



1 



„ of bill to rictus 



1 



6 



„ of inner toe 







94 



Weight 



7 oz. 



— R. 



[194.] 1. Lestris pomarina. (Temm.) Pomari?ie Jager. 



Genus, Lestris, Illig. 



Stercoraire pomarine (Lestris pomarina), Temm., ii., p. 793. 



Lestris pomarina (Pomarine lestris). Sab. Suppl. Parry's First Voy., p. ccvi., p. 22. 



Richards. Append. Parry's Second Voy., p. 361, No. 20. 

 Esquimaux Keask. Hudson's Bay Residents. 



The Pomarine Jager or Gull-hunter is not uncommon in the Arctic seas and 

 northern outlets of Hudson's Bay, where it subsists on putrid fish and other 



* The sixth primary varies, its whole outer web being black" in some birds ; in others merely brownish at its 

 base. — R. 



