D8 Mr Edmondston m the Kiitiwokey ^c. 
The kittiwake, like most of the gulls, is frequently on wing, 
and is a very industrious and expert fisher. Its usual mode of 
catching its prey is, like the gannet or the tern, to precipitate 
itself with sudden velocity from the air, several feet beneath the 
surface of the water.. 
It is familiar, and easily tamed ; but, apparently from the de- 
licacy of its constitution, it seldom lives long in confinement. It 
is subject to a disease very similar to the tubercular phthisis of 
the human species. After employing many unavailing efforts 
to save a fhvourite individual I had domesticated, and originally 
procured, by rescuing it from the insidious attacks of a cowardly 
raven, it continued to languish, and at length died quite ema- 
ciated. I opened it, curious to know the cause of its deaths 
when I observed the lungs quite studded with tubercles, and 
ulceration surrounding them in every direction.. We know how 
much physiology is indebted to comparative anatomy for its 
advancement ; and a more extended and accurate investigation 
of the diseases of the lower animals, than they have yet received, 
might elucidate principles in general pathology, which are still 
so ambiguous and obscure. 
This species lays two eggs, and its young is now generally 
admitted to be what was so long described as a distinct species, 
under the name of Larus tridactylus. Indeed, it is not a little 
singular that so glaring an error should have been only so re- 
cently removed. This is, hov/ever, but another example of the 
little accuracy in distinction which may be looked for, from the 
mere consideration of the external characters of birds. In these, 
it is true, the kittiwake and its young differ much ; yet who 
could ever doubt they were the same species, after having seen 
them together in their native cliffs ^ 
But although the tridiactylus of most authors be without any 
question the young of the kittiwake, a bird has been described 
by other writers as the same, on which I confess some doubt 
may exist. 
Last November I obtained several specimens, one of which was 
Sent to the Wernerian Natural History Society, of a bird similar 
in many respects to the kittiwake^, but remarkably different in 
others.. The upper part of the neck and head is pale blue, be- 
