Adult Female. Plate CCLXXXVI. Fig. 2.
The Female, which is somewhat smaller, resembles the male; the white margins of the wing-feathers not so distinct. Weight 4 lb. 4 oz.
The gizzard is very large, its muscular coat an inch and a half thick at the lower extremity, the cuticular lining thick, very hard, and denticulate on one side. The intestine seven feet long, the cœca twelve inches and placed at the distance of one foot from the anus.
THE IVORY GULL.
Larus eburneus, Phipps.
PLATE CCLXXXVII. Adult and Young.
Having ascertained that this beautiful species visits the southern coast of Labrador and Newfoundland every winter, I have thought it probable that it occasionally extends its rambles as far as our eastern shores, and therefore determined to include it in my Illustrations. The figures in the plate were taken from two specimens procured by Captain James Clark Ross, one of which was an adult male, the other a young bird in its second year. Captain Sabine says that the Ivory Gulls are attracted in considerable numbers by whale blubber, are therefore usually found in company with the Procellaria glacialis, and are easily killed, being by no means shy. Dr Richardson informs us that they were observed breeding in great numbers on the high perforated cliffs which form the extremity of Cape Parry, in latitude 70°.
Larus eburneus, Phipps’s Voyage, p. 187.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 816.—Swains. and Richards. Fauna Bor. Amer. part ii. p. 419.
Ivory Gull, Lath. Synops. vol. vi. p. 377.—Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 301.
Adult Male. Plate CCLXXXVII. Fig. 1.
Bill shorter than the head, robust, nearly straight, compressed. Upper mandible with the dorsal line nearly straight at the base, arched and declinate towards the end, the ridge convex, the sides slightly so, the edges sharp, a little inflected, somewhat arched, the tip rather obtuse. Nasal groove rather long and narrow; nostrils in its fore part, lateral, longitudinal, linear, wider anteriorly, pervious. Lower mandible with a prominence at the end of the angle, which is long and narrow, the dorsal line slightly concave and ascending, the sides flattened, the edges sharp and inflected.