GLAUCOUS GULL. 
LARUS GLAUCUS. 
The Glaucous Gull is said by several writers to be most numerous off the Shetland and Orkney Islands and 
in the North Sea; small parties and large flocks of birds, in various stages of plumage, are also seen at times 
frequenting tbe seas around the British Islands. 
My own experience concerning this species, gained from personal observation, is unfortunately somewhat 
scanty. While staying at Yarmouth during the winter months, I now and then saw a few immature birds in 
the Roads and off the harbour-mouth ; in the terrible November gale of 1872, that continued for six days, 
commencing on the 11th, I noticed three or four, in immature plumage, flying about along the shore, but 
failed to obtain a shot, as they all kept too far out to sea. In somewhat finer weather on the 30th of October, 
1879, I fired a shot from the beach near the head of the north pier, at a young bird, and it fell nearly a quarter 
of a mile out at sea in the Roads. Then, driving across the wharf by the river, I happened to find the tugboat 
required, and steamed out of the harbour and thoroughly searched the Roads, but failed to discover any signs 
of the bird. Many years ago, while shooting in the marshes near Bulverhitlie, on the Sussex coast, between 
St. Leonards-on-Sea and Bexhill, I obtained a capital view of a magnificent adult in perfect plumage ; the bird, 
however, unfortunately passed on out of range, flying west a short distance inside the shingle-banks. The 
following day a specimen exactly corresponding in every respect, and perhaps the same, as I made a careful 
examination, was brought into a bird-stuffer’s shop at St. Leonards-on-Sea ; this flne bird was reported to 
have been shot on the broad expanse of shingle that stretches along the shore of the Channel adjoining 
Pevensey Level. 
The only Glaucous Gull I have so far procured was obtained near Hickling Broad on the 27th of November, 
1874. While proceeding along the marsh-wall from Heigham Sounds towards Hickling Broad, I caught sight of 
the bird flying along over the course of Deep Dyke, the river between the Broad and the Sounds, and immediately 
recognized an immature Glaucous. It was evidently making its way inland for a drink and a wash in the fresh 
water, after having left the open sea about mid-day, as hundreds of the larger Gulls are accustomed to do at this 
time of year and also earlier in the season, when the large fleet of herring-boats is fishing off the coast. As the 
distance was fully sixty or seventy yards, it was doubtful whether a charge of shot from a shoulder-gun would 
have much effect. Having, however, sufficient time to change the cartridges loaded with No. 3 shot, with which 
my heavy 10-bore was charged, for some with No. 1, I let him have both barrels, just as he came in line with us, 
flapping slowly up the course of the river. It was evident in a moment that the dose I gave him had taken 
effect ; wavering for a second or two, he fell away towards the north, passing close over the keeper’s house on 
Whiteslea Island, and finally rising with his last effort a few yards in the air, fell headlong into the marshes. 
As my boats and punts were following, the men were hailed, and the deep water in the dyke and the small 
broad at Whiteslea were soon crossed, and landing at the stage by the house we passed out by the bridge on to 
the marshes beyond, and keeping the line taken, soon detected the bird lying most conspicuously with its wings 
