384 
LARIDiE. 
I have occasionally (particularly in April and May) seen old as 
well as young birds ascend the river Lagan as far as the tide 
flows, but chiefly at low water : — a beautiful adult bird shot 
there on the 8th of April, 1837, at the docks of the canal, 
came under my inspection. An immature one, killed on Lough 
Neagh, has been brought to me. Mr. B. Ball mentions his having, 
in the spring of 1831 or 1832, fired at an adult bird, seated on 
a rock off Ireland's Eye. It fell into the water, where, after a 
considerable battle, in which his hands were repeatedly wounded, 
he captured it. On examination, it did not appear that his shot 
had taken effect, but there seemed to be an injury some days old, 
on one of its wings, which had probably been grazed by a bullet. 
The bird being tied up in a handkerchief, often contrived to get its 
head out, and seldom without managing to draw blood from some- 
body near. It was, however, safely brought to Dublin. On being 
enlarged in a room, and offered some cold meat, this was eagerly 
partaken of, and on the moment the bird became perfectly tame. 
It was placed in the Zoological Gardens, Phoenix Park, where it 
was for a long time an especial favourite, on account of its tame- 
ness and beauty. It recovered the power of flight, and used 
sometimes to go away for a few days, and return again. On one 
occasion it was observed to mount very high in the air, and fly 
sea-ward, after which it was never again seen. This gull was in 
the garden about two years. 
The two species of black-backed gulls were remarked by the 
late Mr. G. Matthews and his party, to be about equally common 
along the coast of Norway in summer and autumn. 
Audubon (vol. iii. p. 305) gives a very full description of this 
species, as observed by him generally, at breeding-stations, on 
ship-deck, &c. ; and at p. 312 there appears in his work a most 
interesting history from the pen of Dr. Neill, of Edinburgh, of 
one of these birds kept in this gentleman's garden, and which, 
having the use of its wings, went off annually in the spring, as 
was supposed, to some breeding-haunt, but regularly returned for 
a long period of years to spend his winter in the vicinity of the 
learned metropolis, with the kind friend under whose care he was 
