RARER BRITISH BIRDS. 
59 
ICELAND GULL. 
Larus Leucopterus. Faber. 
M. Temminck, and Captain Sabine, for some time did not 
allow that this Gull and the Herring Gull (Larus Angentatus, 
Brunn) were distinct ; but later observations, and particularly 
those of Mr. Edmonston, have, without doubt, proved them to 
be so. It was supposed to be the L. Angentatus, deprived of 
the black markings on the wings by the cold of the Arctic 
regions ; but the Herring Gull is found not to be deprived of 
these markings in the same habitat, why, therefore, should it 
be the case with some, and not with others ? 
Mr. Edmonston noticed this bird as a winter visitant of Unst, 
one of the Shetland Isles, where it was confounded by the 
inhabitants with the Burgomaster, under the name of Iceland 
Gull. A few, Mr. Selby informs us in his “ British Ornitho- 
logy,” stray as far southward as the Northumbrian coast, where 
he mentions having obtained three or four specimens, but all in 
an immature state of plumage. 
In the “ Fauna Boriali Americana,” this Gull is mentioned 
under the name L. Leucopterus, (Faber.) We are also told, in 
the same work, that, during the first voyage of Sir Edward Parry 
and Captain Ross, many specimens of this Gull were obtained 
in Davis’s Straits, Baffin’s Bay, and Melville Island. 
The Iceland Gull differs from the Burgomaster in being of 
smaller size, being about six inches less in length, and nine in 
breadth. The tarsi are half an inch shorter in the former than 
in the latter. The wings, when closed in the former, reach 
beyond the tail ; while, in the latter, they do not reach quite to 
