NORTH AMERICAN GULLS AND THEIR ALLIES. 65 
evidently a wanderer, was taken on St. George Island. Alaska, 
May 25, 1911 (Evermann). 
In the 35 years following discovery of this species only two in 
dividuals were seen, one in latitude 82°, north of Spitzbergen, about 
1827 (Ross), and one at Felix Harbor in either 1830 or 1831 (Ross). 
During the next 20 years only about 10 additional birds were seen, 
and then in the three years from 1879 to 1882, the real home was 
found and the birds were seen by hundreds. 
In addition to the records given in the foregoing, Ross's gull has 
been taken on the west coast of Greenland about six times, from 
Sukkertoppen to Melville Bay (Schalow); north of Spitzbergen in 
midsummer, about latitude 84° 40' (Sverdrup) — the most northern 
record to date; near Franz Josef Land, one in 1873 (Payer); two in 
Kamchatka (Saunders); and one in Yorkshire, England (Saunders). 
SABINE'S GULL. Xema sabini (J. Sabine). 
Range. — Arctic regions of both hemispheres, south to South 
America. 
Breeding range. — Eggs of Sabine's gull have been taken in only a 
few localities, but these are scattered across the Arctic coast from 
Greenland on the east to the mouth of the Yukon on the west, about 
a hundred degrees of longitude. Then comes a space of a hundred 
degrees in which the species is not known to breed, and then a large 
colony of nesting birds is recorded from the Taimyr Peninsula in 
northwestern Siberia (Middendorff) , with no other known breeding 
place within 2,000 miles in either direction. It is evident that the 
real summer home of the species is in the Arctic regions of the Western 
Hemisphere and that the breeders on the Siberian coast must be 
considered a sporadic colony. 
The type specimen was taken in latitude 75° 30' in Melville 
Bay, on the west coast of Greenland, July 25, 1818 (Sabine), 
where the species was common and young were just hatching. The 
most northern breeding record on this coast is at Thank God Harbor, 
latitude 81° 40', where a bird was taken containing an egg just 
ready to be laid (Davis). To the westward the breeding range is 
much farther south, since eggs were taken in latitude 63°, on South- 
ampton Island in Hudson Bay during the summer of 1904 (Low). 
Eggs were found by Collinson at Cambridge Bay, and the species is 
common to abundant as a breeder on the shores of Liverpool and 
Franklin Bays, Mackenzie (MacFarlane) . It has not been found 
nesting on any of the Arctic islands in either hemisphere, though it 
was taken north to Walker Bay (Collinson), Wellington Channel 
(Sutherland), and Prince Regent Inlet (Sabine). It was found com- 
mon at Igloolik, on Melville Peninsula, but apparently did not breed 
near there. Nor is it certain that it nests at Point Barrow, where 
