ON THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF 
similarity, however, between the two, so great, indeed, 
that, at first sight, one might readily take them for the 
same species. The beak is of nearly the same form, being 
in both without protuberance on the upper mandible, which 
is considerably less curved than in any of the other large 
gulls. The principal points of difference are the following : 
The nostrils are much narrower than in L. arcticus, the 
whole habit more robust, the head and neck in particular 
proportionally larger, the bill more elongated, and the 
wings shorter. It is in the dimensions, however, that we 
are to look for the most decisive characters ; the present 
bearing to the preceding species much the same relation in 
this respect that the Raven bears to the Carrion Crow. 
The young also can only be confounded with those of the 
preceding species^ from which they differ chiefly in size, 
being much paler than those of any other large species, 
and without the dark quills and tail of the others. 
Synonyms. — Larus glaucus, Temminck, Man. d'Ornith. 
pt. ii. p, 757. Iceland Gully Mr Edmondston, in 
Memoirs of Wernerian Society, vol. iv. L. glaucus, 
Capt. Sabine, in Linn. Trans, vol. xii. pt. ii. p. 
These are the only synonyms to which I can refer with 
certainty. Temminck and Sabine have thought proper to 
extend the list. I would remark, in general, of their syno- 
nyms, that we cannot be in the slightest degree certain that 
the authors whom they quote, did not describe the L. arc- 
ticus, Fabricius's account of his L. glaucus^ for example, 
accords in all things with our L. arcticus ; and it is very 
probable that Latham, by his Glaucous Gull, means it 
also, or has confounded the two ; and it is plain that he 
had no distinct conception of it, from his remark regarding 
a bird with the primaries black at the end, and from his 
quoting BiiissoN, who, in his Larus cinereus, has assuredly 
