CHAPTER VI 



THE ARCTIC SKUA AND ITS NESTING 



A LONG and narrow Hebridean island. Full open to the 

 salt spray of the Atlantic, a few small hills and granite 

 rocks alone offer any shelter from the storm, and it is rare 

 that the boom of the surf may not be heard throughout 

 the length and breadth of the island. Here it was that I 

 first learnt to know the Arctic skua at the time of its nesting. 



It is not until the very end of May, when most of the 

 gulls have hatched out their young, that the skuas reach 

 their nesting-grounds from their southern winter quarters 

 — for none of their tribe winters in the British Isles. In- 

 deed, as late as the first week in June I have seen them, 

 in pairs, haunting the sandy shores of an island to the 

 scmth'ard of the one on which they nest, evidently on their 

 way to the nesting-grounds, and by the 15th of that month 

 some of the nests are still incomplete. 



It is on the north end of the island that the Arctic or 

 Richardson's skuas — for the species possesses two names — 

 make their home during the months of summer sunshine. 

 Their nesting-ground is a desolate stretch of boggy moor- 

 land. Here and there lochans lie hidden away in the hollows, 

 and here also is the haunt of the tribe of the speckled trout, 

 and of the red-throated diver. 



It was a wonderful morning of mid-June that I first 

 visited the nesting-ground of the skua gulls. Not the 

 faintest of breezes blew in from the Atlantic, not a single 

 cloud relieved the deep blue of the sky. So quiet was the 

 surface of the sea that the course of every current could 

 clearly be seen, while away in the distance the big hills of 

 the Is1<? of Mull, and behind them again, of the Lochaber 



