290 
sabine’s gull. 
mens were procured by Captain Sabine during the 
Northern Expedition in 1818, and they were after- 
wards seen by the other arctic voyagers ; they have 
been met with in Spitzbergen, Tgloolio, and Behring 
Straits ; and the first birds were killed on a group of 
islands on the west coast of Greenland, where they 
were breeding in company with the arctic terns, 
laying their eggs on the bare ground. 
This species, in the forked form of the tail, ex- 
hibits a variation from any of the others either 
belonging to the black-headed division or to the 
true gulls ; in other respects it is a small grace- 
ful bird, rather slightly made. In the adult breed- 
ing plumage a specimen before us has the head, 
throat, and upper part of the neck, blackish groy 
on the nape black, shading into the grey, and run- 
ning to a point forwards ; mantle, wings, and ter- 
tials grey ; greater covers and secondaries broadly 
tipped with white ; lower part of the neck, upper 
tail-covers, tail and under parts, pure white ; quills 
black, with white tips, except the first ; the half of 
the inner webs white, as in the terns ; whole edge 
of the wing black ; bill black at the base, the tip 
yellowish white ; feet and legs black. 
The specimen shot in Belfast Bay, the drawing 
of which we have alluded to, was in the autumnal 
plumage of the first year, and Mr. Thompson thus 
described it : — “ The forehead, space immediately 
above the eye, and between it and the bill (with 
the exception of the narrow line of greyish black 
closely encircling the front and lower part of the 
