dirty Allan
Also 9 dirten-, -allen, -aulin.
A species of skua, Stercorarius crepidatus, which obtains its food chiefly by pursuing gulls and other sea-birds, and forcing them to disgorge their prey, which it then catches up; = dirt-bird.
| 1771 Pennant Tour Scotl. in 1769, 78 (Jam. s.v. Aulin), An Arctic Gull flew near the boat. This is the species that persecutes and pursues the lesser kinds, till they mute through fear, when it catches their excrement ere they reach the water: the boatmen, on that account, styled it the dirty Aulin. 1806 Neill Tour Orkn. & Shetl. 201 (Jam. s.v. Scouti-aulin) This bird is sometimes simply called the Allan; sometimes the Dirten-allan. 1821 A. Fisher Jrnl. 18 Commonly called by our Greenland seamen the boatswain, and sometimes dirty Allen, a name somewhat analogous to that by which it is characterized by the Danes. 1844 Zoologist II. 515 Richardson's skua, ‘Dirten Allen.’ 1885 [see dirt-bird]. |