young just hatched as well as others ready to fly."* About the rocks of Howth, Ireland's Eye, and Lambay, they have been met with in the breeding season by Mr. R. Ball and myself.

When at the Mew Island-one of the Copeland Islands-in June 1827 and 1832, I was surprised to see very large flocks of kittiwakes, both there and on the neighbouring rocks, all in full plumage, though no breeding-place was near. At the Skerries, too, off Portrush, as already mentioned, numbers were met with early in July on the island of Rathlin, not far distant, the species has a breeding-haunt; but these individuals, like those at the Mew Island, probably did not seek to multiply their kind. The presence of numbers of full-plumaged kittiwakes in the height of the breeding season about localities where they do not build has been commented on by Mr. Lawrence Edmonston, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal' for 1822 (No. XIII. or vol. vii.), who informs us :-" Of the multitudes of the Larus rissa, or kittiwake, that annually arrive in Zetland to breed, large flocks are observed to keep apart from those which repair to the usual haunts for incubation, resting on the water, or on low rocks, and, from their not breeding, are termed in the dialect of the country yeeld kittiwakes.† This singular fact in their history has been stated by Dr. Edmonston in his View of the Zetland Islands; but I am not conscious that any explanation has yet been offered of it." The writer "suspects these yeeld kittiwakes to be merely the young of the first year, which, although attained to perfect plumage, have not yet acquired the faculty of propagation." To the interesting paper itself I must refer for further information and speculations on the subject.

On visiting the Mew Island, in June 1833, under similar cir

*Mr. J. Poole.

This would also seem to be the case with the gannet at St. Kilda. Mr. John Macgillivray, who visited that island in 1841, and gave a very interesting description of the birds there, states that-" The account given by Martin of the barren gannets, which roost separately from the others, was confirmed by the natives."-Edin. Phil. Jour. January 1842, p. 66.

Mr. Selby (p. 495) and Audubon (vol. iii. p. 187) say, that the kittiwake is two years in attaining adult plumage.

cumstances as to weather, &c., as in the former years, only two or three kittiwakes were seen during the day. An ornithological friend, who spent part of that summer at Ardglass, on the Down coast, remarked kittiwakes to be common there. They were abundant around the Mew Island on the 9th of August, 1849.*

This gull is occasionally obtained in winter in the north of Ireland.† One, killed on the coast at Donaghadee, on the 27th of November, 1834, and another found dead in a bog, ten miles distant from the sea, on the 20th of January, 1837, came under my inspection: both were young birds in the singular and handsome plumage so well represented by Bewick. I have seen an adult bird shot in the river Lagan, above the bridge at Belfast, on the 29th of January, 1845, and another killed in the bay in the middle of February 1846-the winter plumage of the adult, like that of the immature bird, is peculiar, and has no counterpart in our other British gulls.

Isolated instances only of its occurrence in winter, as just indicated, were known to me until 1849, when within the last ten days of January, one old and two young birds were shot in Belfast Bay, and another old bird was found dead;-they were mere skeletons, as kittiwakes procured at this season here have generally been. Only one contained in its stomach any food, which consisted of the remains of several of the crustaceous genus Idotea. Between the 20th of February and 5th of March that year, ten birds, all adult, came under my notice; three shot in Belfast Bay; three found dead on the beach near Holywood, and with them a herring-gull; all seeming to have died a natural death; two were procured at different inland places (one shot and the other found dead), five miles in a direct line from the sea, or, if they followed the windings of the river Lagau, nearly double that distance;-the two others were obtained near Kirkcubbin,

*Mr. J. R. Garrett.

Dr. Harvey remarks, in the 'Fauna of Cork,' that he has sometimes met with it there in winter.

The ring round the eye in this bird was blackish, instead of orange-red, as in

summer.

on the borders of Strangford Lough. All these birds were miserably poor in flesh; four of them weighed respectively 10, 9, 8, and 7 ounces avoirdupois ;-Bewick notes the weight of the bird as 14 oz. So light were several of these birds that they were imagined by persons lifting them to be mere skins, put up in a natural form by the taxidermist. In the stomach of one was found a specimen of the fresh-water shell Paludina impura-of another, the remains of a crab; one was well filled with earthworms and earth (this bird was killed when "following the plough"); and the bill of another contained some dry loamy earth; the stomachs of all the others were empty. At this season the colour of the tongue, whole inside of mouth, and naked skin round the eye, was brilliant orange. On the 12th of February, 1850, an adult bird was picked up dead in Belfast Bay, and, like those of last year, was very poor;-a week afterwards one in good condition was obtained.

The kittiwake, being taken inland in the north, has just been mentioned; and, with respect to the county of Wexford, we are told that it "sometimes wanders inland in search of worms, rarely alighting, however, but dipping down for a moment to pick something up, and quickly resuming its flight."* This is opposed to the usual habit of the species:-both Mr. Selby and Sir Wm. Jardine remark, that it never advances inland; but feeds exclusively on the productions of the sea.

Mr. Selby observes, that the kittiwake "seems to be more abundant upon the eastern than the opposite side of the kingdom [England]," adding "which may perhaps be attributed to the line of its migrative flight from the eastern parts of Europe, to which shores the great body of those that breed here seem to retire in winter" (p. 494). But may not its comparative scarcity on the western coast of England rather be attributed to a want of suitable breeding-places, as in Ireland a westerly position has no influence in this respect, several of the islets lying off the western coast from north to south being its greatest breeding-haunts?

*Mr. J. Poole.

Mr. G. C. Hyndman has mentioned to me, that when he was sailing, on the 24th of June, 1844, some miles from Ailsa, kittiwakes-which breed in quantities on that majestic pyramidal rock-were attracted by the bait that was out for gurnard, and which, in consequence of the speed of the yacht in sailing, was dragged along the surface. Perceiving this, he threw out pieces of fat meat to them, when about twenty gathered round the vessel, and followed it for two or three miles.

At Ballantrae, on the coast of Ayrshire, these birds are commonly taken, in the following manner, by idle boys. They bait hooks with the liver of the cod-fish, and fling them as far out from the shore as possible, having a stone as a counterpoise to the gull's weight attached to the opposite end of the string, and left at the edge of the water. They then retire to such a distance as to allow the victims to come freely to the bait, and so soon as this is swallowed, they hasten to the stone and draw in the line with the hooked gull at its other extremity. Various species of gulls have been thus taken. The kittiwakes are purchased on the spot at a penny each for the sake of their feathers, "and a person of my acquaintance there has obtained as many of them from birds captured in this manner, as have sufficed to stuff some pillows.

When proceeding, on the 1st of February, 1849, in a steamboat from East Tarbert to Greenock, and about the entrance to Loch Fine, I was attracted by the great beauty of an immature gull of this species during flight. Its beauty consisted in the black margined wing, the black band round the hinder part of the base of the neck, and the black terminal band of the tail. The black along the entire anterior portion of the wings, and continued as it were across the base of the neck from one wing to the other, had a very handsome appearance.

Mr. Hewitson, in his elegant work on the eggs of British birds, gives an interesting account of the kittiwake at the Shetland Islands. The late Mr. G. Matthews remarked it as very common in summer along the coast of Norway.

347

THE IVORY GULL.

Larus eburneus, Gmel.

Has very rarely been observed.

THE following was published in my Report on the vertebrata of Ireland in 1840:-" In the Appendix to Ross's second voyage, it is remarked, under the head of Larus eburneus, 'this beautiful gull has lately visited the western shores of Ireland,' p. 35. By Captain James C. Ross, the author of this Appendix, I have been informed that, early in the year 1834, he derived that information from Joseph Sabine, Esq., who told him simply what is published. For some years, however, I have had a note, communicated by the late Thomas F. Neligan, Esq., of Tralee, who was very well versed in British birds, that, in January 1835, he saw a gull in a field near that town, and four miles distant from the sea, which he was satisfied was the L. eburneus. The ivory tint of its plumage, and its black legs, attracted his attention, and he watched the bird for about twenty minutes."

Mr. R. Chute, writing to me in February 1846, from Blennerville, near Tralee, remarked, that he had heard of an ivory gull being seen in that neighbourhood (probably the one just alluded to), and another near Dingle. In the next year he supplied the following more satisfactory information:-" After the storm that occurred in the beginning of February 1847 there were several ivory gulls about here; I heard of three being seen near Dingle; one of them I saw myself. During my absence from home, two of them for a few days in succession alighted in my yard; my servant thought they were tame birds, and did not frighten them. However, one was shot on the third day, and when I came home I found it to be an ivory gull in rather immature plumage: the other bird they said was pure white :though frequently seen since, I was not able to procure it. I have the bird that was shot now in my collection."