the western shore of Prince Regent’s Inlet ; and Mr. Audubon
includes it in his ornithology of the United States and
North America.
The adult bird has the, bill yellowish-white, the inferior
angle ; of the lower mandible reddish-orange ; irides. straw
yellow ; all the plumage nearly white, but with a tinge Jof
skimmed-milk.blue over the back and,wing-icoverts ; primaries'white,
reaching but little,wrf any, beyond the end of thé
tail ; legs and feet flesh-éolour:
Old males hâve, been taken measuring, from the point of
the beak to the end of the tail-feathers, thirty-two ; and even
thirty-three inches ; the .wing from the carpal jojnÙ to- the
end of the longest quill-feather, nineteen inches. In - Winter
the head and heek afe slightly streaked-with ash-grey.-: $
The bird killed by Mr. Edwards on the Severn, and which
that gentleman very kindly sent up for my use in this work,
measured in its whole length twenty^seven inches and a half-;
the wing seventeen inches and three-quarters."
The young Glaucous : Gull obtained in the London tnarket
has the bill pale brown àt thé bam, tb^'peint dark horn colour
;. the irides dark ; head, neck, back, and^wing coverts, a
mixture of pale ash-brown and dull white ; scapulars and
tertials transversely barred with pale brown, and tipped with
greyish white’; primaries and secondaries uniform pale yel-
lowish grey ; upper and underltàibcoverts dull white, barred
with pale brown ; s tail-feathers uniform yellowish-brown ;-
wings only reaching to the end \ of the tail ; chin, throat,
and breast dull white, mottled with pale brown, belly more
uniform in colour, and greyish-brown pdegs and feet livid
brown. The bird in général appearance is very similar to the
young of thé Lesser White-winged Gull, figured at page 456, !
and described at .page 462, but much larger : the whole
length twenty six inches and a half, and the wing, from the
anterior joint to the end, seventeen inches and a half.
NATATORES. LARIDÆ.
T H E COMMON SKUA.
Larus catarractes, Skua Gull, P enn. Brit. Zool. vol. ii. p. 174.
„ , ,. ,, „ Mont. .Ornith. Diet.
,, ,, Bewick, Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 247.
Cataractes vulgaris, Common Skua, Flem. Brit. An. p. 137.
-.‘i, ,» ,, ,, Selby, Brit. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 514.
Lestris cataractes, ,, ,, J enyns, Brit. Vert. p. 280..
,, catarractes, The~ ,,. Gould, Birds of Europe, pt. iii.
i ,, ,, Stercoraire cataracte, Te m m . Man. d’Ornith. voL ii. p. 792.
- Lestris. Generic Characters.—Bill strong, hard, cylindrical, formed for
cutting ; compressed, curved, and hooked at the point j base of the upper mandible
covered with a cere. Nostrils situated towards the point of the beak,
diagonal, narrow, closed behind, pervious. Legs strong, naked above the tarsi,
which are rather long; three toes in front, palmated; the hind toe small ;
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