i82 GULL GROUP 



their own relations, as well as petrels, of their iiard-carned prey. Woe 

 betide the unfortunate herring-gull or kittiwake returning to its nest 

 with a fish for its hungry offspring when a great skua hovers in sight, 

 as disgorge its boot)- it must at the bidding of the bold and un- 

 scrupulous robber, who will often seize the discarded fish before it 

 reaches the water ! Pirated prey of this dcscrijition does not, however, 

 by any means constitute the whole food of the skuas, as these robbers 

 will devour eggs of other bird?^, and even young or feeble birds them- 

 selves, as well as such small mammals as they arc able to overcome. 

 All the members of the group — only seven in number — breed in high 

 latitudes ; the majority in the northern hemisphere, but three at the 

 opposite side of the globe. As a rule, they la>' two large olive-coloured 

 eggs spotted with browm. 



In some ornithological works all the skuas will be found described 

 under the generic title of Lcstris instead of the name here employed. 

 In others the great skua (together with the three above-mentioned 

 Antarctic species) is generically separated from the more typical 

 members of the group as Mt'galestris axtarrJiades ; this separation being 

 chiefly based on the relative shortness of the tail, in which the two 

 middle feathers project but slightly beyond their fellows, in addition to 

 which these birds are of larger bodily size than the more typical 

 members of the group. Such a distinction is, however, but trivial, and 

 since it does not coincide with the geographical distribution of the 

 two sub-groups, it is not adopted in the present work. 



From the other northern representatives of the group the great skua 

 is sufficiently distinguished by its superior size (length 24 to 25 inches) 

 and the above-mentioned features of the tail. The breeding-range 

 of this fine but mischievous species is now greatly restricted — in the 

 British Isles probably to a considerable extent owing to the incon- 

 siderate and short-sighted rapacity of egg-collectors. Apparently the 

 only known existing breeding-sites are in Ireland, the Faroes, and the 

 islands of Unst and Foula in the Shetland group (where they are 

 specially protected), and perhaps on the opposite side of the Atlantic 

 on certain small islands in the neighbourhood of Hudson Bay. There 

 are accounts of these birds having formerly bred both in the Outer 

 Hebrides and the Orkneys, where they are now very rare, but the.sc 

 have been generally discredited, despite the fact that the l^ritish 

 Museum possesses a clutch of three eggs from the latter islands. In 

 autumn ihe great skua journeys .southward to the Mediterranean, and it 

 is during this .season or in winter that it makes its rare appearances in the 

 British Islands el.sewhere than its few last remaining breeding-places. 



