POMATORHINE SKUA. 669 



having been " killed near Liverpool," and then "in the col- 

 lection of Lord Stanley." This species had already been 

 characterized by Temminck (Manuel d'ornithologie. Ed. 1, 

 p. 514, 1815), and by Brisson some fifty-five years earlier. 

 Since its recognition as a visitor to our shores many more 

 examples, most of them young birds, have been obtained ; 

 and this species is now known to be of tolerably regular 

 occurrence. It appears to come down the lines of our 

 eastern and western coasts in autumn, some remaining all 

 the winter off our southern shores ; and stragglers have 

 been obtained far inland. At one time or another it has 

 been obtained ofl:" nearly every maritime county of Scot- 

 land and England, being more abundant on the eastern than 

 on the western side ; but in the autumn of 1879 it appeared 

 in most unusual numbers. The pages of ' The Zoologist ' 

 and other periodicals were full of records of its occurrence ; 

 and nowhere was it noticed in such profusion as off the coast 

 of Yorkshire, where it was literally in thousands, especially 

 on the 14th October, during a gale from N.N.E. On the 

 28th October, 1880, during a severe storm, another flight, 

 small only by comparison, was noticed at Eedcar.* 



In Ireland comparatively few examples, principally birds 

 of the year, have been obtained at irregular intervals on 

 various parts of the coast. On the 22nd of October, 1862, 

 Mr. K. Warren witnessed a migration of this species in a 

 south-westerly direction, at the Estuary of the Moy, and 

 obtained two nearly adult specimens. The return migration 

 in spring appears to pass to the eastward. 



In the Fa3roe Islands this Skua has occurred in consider- 

 able numbers of late years, especially between August and 

 October, 1873, as well as in 1874 ; it also visited that group 

 on the spring migration of 1877, the fine adult now figured 

 at the head of this article having been obtained on the 20th 



* See T. H. Nelson (Zool. 1880, pp. 18 and 511), for Yorkshire ; Cecil Smith 

 (torn. cit. p. 19), for Somersetshire; M. A. Matbcw, and J. Gatcombe (torn. cit. 

 pp. 20, 21), for Devon and Cornwall ; H. Stevenson (Tr. Norw. Soc. 1880, p. !)9). 

 for Norfolk ; J. J. DalKlcish (Tr. N. II. Soc. Glasgow, iv. pt. ii. p. 271), for 

 Scotland ; not to mention othersi. 



