8 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



and we would ask our readers to carefully collect and 

 record further developments of the extension of range of 

 this and of other species which are presenting, and have 

 presented, phenomenal rapidity in their colonisation. Such 

 observations cannot fail in time to yield interesting results. 



THE PERSECUTION OF THE GREAT SKUA 

 5 TERCORARIUS CA TARRHA CTES. 



By WM. EAGLE CLARKE, F.L.S. 



THERE is one fact in the history of those birds which have 

 become extinct within the present century which it is well 

 should be remembered in connection with some of the rarer 

 and decreasing forms among our indigenous species, namely 

 that their extermination had, in all instances, become an ac- 

 complished fact for several, in some cases many, years before 

 such was realised to be the case. This knowledge should 

 assuredly impress upon us the necessity of calling attention 

 to cases of undue persecution of any species, more especially 

 of those which are alike limited in their numbers and in their 

 distribution, rendering them peculiarly liable to extermina- 

 tion. The Great Skua affords a case in point. Whether 

 the Great Skua is an increasing or a decreasing species in its 

 Icelandic and North - western haunts, I know not ; it is, 

 however, high time we fully realised that it is both a 

 much persecuted and rapidly decreasing bird in its European 

 habitats. Indeed, unless some check be placed upon 

 the wholesale egg-taking in the Shetlands, and its de- 

 struction in the Faeroes, this fine species must soon cease 

 to exist in the eastern area of its range. That such per- 

 secution not only prevails, but is rampant, is made clearly 

 manifest by the following reports which have been most 

 kindly furnished by my friends Mrs. Traill and Mr. Frank 

 Traill for Shetland, and Colonel Feilden for Faeroe. 



FOULA. 



Before proceeding to report upon the past year, it may 

 be useful to remark that until the present decade, thanks to 



