ORNITHOLOGY. 



latitudes during this voyage of Captain Ross, and it would have 

 proved indeed a singular exception if Larus Glaucus had escaped 

 the same "elucidation into obscurity." Upon the return of the 

 expedition those northern acquisitions were deposited in the British 

 Museum, excepting only such duplicate specimens as were retained 

 by the officers engaged in the voyage and distributed among their 

 friends. Those birds, as already intimated, were subsequently des- 

 cribed in the addenda to the narrative of that voyage by Capt. Ross, 

 and Dr. Leach, then of the British Museum : by Captain Sabine in 

 the Linnaean Transactions; and in various literary journals and 

 other publications. Those descriptions and observations have again 

 given rise to discussions among other writers, and have thus 

 ultimately led to differences of opinions that cannot now be very 

 easily reconciled. With respect to the bird before us, the more imme- 

 diate object of our present consideration, they have consented 

 generally to denominate it the Glaucous Gull, but they differ widely 

 as to its presumed congenerics or varieties : affinities altered, as it is 

 presumed, from the effects of climate, or differing according to their 

 age and sexual distinctions. Mr. Temminck, under the species 

 Larus Glaucus presents us with an ample list of synonyms, which he 

 conceives belong to this bird in the adult state, and also of such as 

 he considers to be the bird in a less mature state, as well as in its first 

 state of plumage, and likewise the differences which he attributes 

 to the effect of climate. This writer identifies his Larus Glaucus 

 with that of Latham's Index Ornithologicus, at the same time that 

 he rejects most of the synonyms Dr. Latham has collected, with a 

 pointed declaration that nearly all are wrong *. Mr. Temminck 



* " Lath. Ind. v. 2. p. 814. sp. 7. mais presque tous les synonymes 

 faux." Temminck Manuel d'Ornithologie, p. 758. And further it may be 



