B U O N A P A R T E ' S G U L L.
BUONAPARTI AN GULL.
Larus BuonaparHi, THOMPSON. AUDUBON.
Larus— ? BwmapartH—Of Buonaparte.
I F I was writing a history of France, or rather a history of the
World, instead of a History of British Birds, I might here enlarge,
were my pen able to do equal justice to the subject with the pencil
of Landseer, on the contrast between ' P e a c e ' and ' W a r , 1 the name
of Buonaparte suggesting to the eye of the mind a picture, which
not even the touch of that greatest of painters, ancient or modern,
can equally convey to it. Whether 'True Greatness' is most and
best exhibited in the life of the Prince, or in that of the Emperor,
in the man of science, or the man of the sword, whether the study
of all GOD'S creatures for one's own instruction and that of others,
or the wholesale destruction of the last-made and best of them all,
for the sake of self alone, is most for the glory of GOD or the good
of man, my readers will be able to say—I hope, I know, that even
my writings have assisted to spread in this country a right spirit,
which will enable many to return the true answer to the question,
and to make it tell so far with practical effect.
The present species, named after the Prince of Canino, Charles
Lucira Buonaparte, the eminent naturalist, has in America been
noticed in different parts of the Union, and throughout the Fur Countries
in abundance, in Chesapeake Hay, Passamaquody Harbour, Charleston
Harbour, and about the Great Slave Lake.
One was obtained in Cornwall, in Falmouth Harbour, January 4th.,
1865.
In Scotland, a specimen was shot by Sir George II. Leith, on the
shore of Loch Lomond, in Dumbartonshire, the end of April, 1800.