400 
LARIDiE. 
All Mr. Yarrell says of the L. parasiticus as British, is, that — - 
“ An adult specimen, killed in this country, is preserved in the 
British Museum ; and the Zoological Society, in 1832, received 
the species from Orkney. * * * Young birds have been killed 
in the vicinity of the Tyne aud on the coast of Durham, in the 
month of September; and Mr. John Hancock, of Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne, obtained a mature individual that was shot near 
Whitburn, in Durham, at the end of October 1837” (p. 495). 
To myself, this is the best-known species of Lestris, and it 
was the first to come under my observation both in Belfast and 
Dublin. A beautiful adult male — now preserved in the Belfast 
Museum — was shot near Holy wood, Belfast Bay, on the 12th of 
September, 1822, in the presence of my friend, William Sin- 
claire. Esq. ; and on the 21st of October that year an immature 
bird fell to my own gun on the shore there — at Holywood rabbit- 
warren. I was but a juvenile shooter, and it was my first victim 
killed on the wing, but certainly not after the most approved 
fashion. Having observed it coming towards me, my gun was 
pointed upwards, and I waited until the poor skua, flying very 
leisurely, came innocently almost right above my head, when, as 
it was about to cross my barrel, the trigger was pulled, and it 
came down “ stone-dead.” The late Mr. John Montgomery, a 
keen observer of birds, and who formed a collection of native 
species, noted the adult specimen alluded to as the “ arctic gull, 
Lestris parasiticus” Under that name, it appears by a note in 
his MS., that in August 1824 two i>f these birds were sent to 
him from Dundrum (Down) ; to which it is added, that they were 
both in the plumage of the black-toed gull of Bewick.* One 
of them lived for a month, by being fed on bread and milk : 
one certainly (now in the Belfast Museum), and probably the other 
also, was the true L. parasiticus . Dr. J. D. Marshall procured, on 
the 13th of September, 1831, an adult male bird of this species 
which was wounded off Holywood, Belfast Bay, in which locality 
* Bewick’s “ Black-toed Gull ” is L. Richardsonii, but its plumage (and that 
only is mentioned in the MS. ; no dimensions being given) will serve for immature 
L. parasiticus almost as well. 
