THE GREAT SKUA IN SHETLAND DURING 1891 89 



This report of Mrs. Traill's is a valuable and interest- 

 ing one, and if it did not disclose the existence of a 

 wholesale system of egg-taking by some of the natives it 

 might be considered satisfactory. There is, however, in it 

 much that is calculated to encourage us to hope for a better 

 state of things in the now approaching season. It also 

 throws important light upon the relative numbers of the 

 breeding and non-breeding birds. This goes to prove that 

 though we may fairly estimate the number of Skuas now 

 resorting to Foula annually during the summer at not less 

 than one hundred and twenty individuals an estimate we 

 can endorse the correctness of from personal observation 

 yet we must not conclude that all these visitors to the island 

 of their birth are breeding birds, but it would appear now 

 that two-thirds of them are to be reckoned as such. This 

 is an important fact, and one upon which we have not 

 hitherto, I believe, had any reliable data. 



Mr. G. E. Paterson reports 



I received a letter from a Scalloway fisherman, whose name I 

 give you, dated 3d August 1891, in which he says he had been to 

 Foula, and that he had the chance of a lot of egg shells, and could 

 get them and send on the lot to me when I could select them and send 

 on the value at my own price, there being a lot of Bonxies among 

 them. I wrote him to send on the eggs, which were sent off from 

 Scalloway on 313! August. They arrived upon 5th September, and I 

 found fifty-five Great Skua's eggs in the box. The following was 

 written upon a slip of paper " 4 dozen and 7 bonxy egg shells, they 

 are separated from the others by this line." I wrote in reply to this 

 that I was sorry to see so many Great Skua's eggs, and that I did 

 not know what to do with them, and also asked him what was the 

 people's idea of price, and on i4th September he wrote me to the 

 following effect. 



" They came to me from Foula just as you got them, I was 

 away when the box came. I told my wife to send them on to you, 

 so I have never seen them. I am sorry if there are more than you 

 may require, for I had either to take them all or none. Also I told 

 them I would not price them as I knew nothing about them. 



Mr. has not got many shells this year, for he has been 



wondering to me what has come of all the shells this year." 



I wrote to Mr. - , Scalloway, who deals in eggs and who 



is alluded to by the Scalloway fisherman, to ask him if he had any 

 Great Skua's eggs for sale. On 2ist September he replied : 



