sabine's gull. 
309 
fourth part of his ‘Manuel/ p.} 461— which appeared in 1840 — 
as met with on the coast of Prance ; but whether on the Mediter- 
ranean or Atlantic coast is not stated. 
A second record of the occurrence of this species in the 
British Seas, appears, in a letter from Mr. Austin, in the ninth 
volume of the ‘Annals of Natural History/ p. 435, dated Bristol, 
June 4, 1842. The Sterna stolida is there mentioned as “a 
summer visitor to St. George's Channel," and it is remarked that 
“ the flight/of the noddy is extremely rapid, and it is so exceed- 
ingly shy, that I could never get a shot at one, though watching 
many times foUa ‘ chance.' As I have never observed this bird 
on the main shore, which it seldom, if ever, approaches, it probably 
retires, after feeding, to some insulated rock to repose itself, with- 
out fear of interruption. ^ It appears a solitary bird, never 
assemblingpn flocks like thehS'. hirundo, but singly seeks its food 
at some distance from land, though it occasionally pursues its 
prey into the estuaries of the larger Irish rivers, or along the 
outer shores of the coast." 
Audubon, in the fifth volume of his ‘ Ornithological Biography/ 
gives a most interesting account of this species as an American 
bird. It is copied in Yarrell's ‘ History of British Birds' 
(vol. iii.), where the best information from other works is also 
included. 
SABINE'S GULL. 
Eork-tailed Gull. 
Larus Sabini , Sabine.* 
Young birds of the year have, in a very few instances, 
been met with in autumn. 
I first noticed its occurrence in Ireland, before the Linnean 
Society, on the 15th of April, 1834, and a brief abstract of the 
communication w r as then published in the ‘ London and Edinburgh 
* See p. 314 of . isvolume. 
