BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 439 
Nith ; a fish took the hook, and a gull " five feet across the 
wings " took the fish, and was thus caught.* The local 
fishermen shoot this species whenever an opportunity occurs, 
not that it does them any harm, but out of a sort of 
superstitious revengefulness, for human bodies drifted ashore 
are very often disfigured by gulls. 
On the north and west of Scotland and Ireland, the Great 
Black-backed Gull breeds abundantly, becoming more local 
in its breeding-range in England and Wales. 
THE GLAUCOUS GULL. Larus glaucus, 0. Fabricius. 
A rare and irregular winter-visitor. 
Sir William Jardine, writing of this species, says, in 1843 : 
" For the last two winters a gull with white wings has 
occasionally travelled up and down the river Annan for 
fifteen miles, but has been so shy as to baffle all endeavours 
to procure it."t A specimen of the Glaucous Gull labelled 
as obtained on the Solway passed from the Jardine collection 
in 1876 to the Edinburgh Museum. This specimen was sent 
to Sir William Jardine from Dumfries on February 4th, 1829. J 
" A fine Glaucous Gull, apparently in the plumage of the 
second year," is recorded as having been shot at Shieldhill 
(Tinwald), in the last week of December, 1880, and was 
sent to William Hastings for preservation. § In a letter 
to Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown, Mr. R. Service mentions 
seeing a gull of this species in 1888. On February 6th, 
1892, a Glaucous Gull in third winter's plumage was shot 
on Netherwood Merse (Caerlaverock), near the mouth of 
the Nith.ll 
* Dumfries Courier, August 15th, 1837. 
t Nat. Lib., 1843, Vol. XIV., p. 307. 
J Jardine, MS. Diary, February 4th, 1829. 
§ Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasg., 1881, Vol. V., p. 63. 
!| Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1892, p. 141. 
