VOL. VI.] NOTES. 163 



I revisited the spot on the morning of May 10th. The 

 eggs lay in the hollow I had made, but a scanty layer of dead 

 grasses had been used to line it. The eggs must of necessity 

 have been rolled out, the hollo^^' lined, and then the eggs rolled 

 back again. The following morning (May 11th) the lining 

 had been very considerably added to. On May 14th one egg 

 was chipping and by the morning of the 16th a few little bits 

 of shell was all I could find. 



A farmer who has been many years on the estate (Elton 

 Hall, Hunts., Col. D. G. Pro by), and from whom I have 

 gleaned many interesting notes concerning local birds, in- 

 formed me that when haiTOwing, etc., nests are constantly 

 disturbed. If seen in time the eggs are lifted while the harrow 

 passes, and then replaced as near to where the nest was as 

 possible ; and he assures me that the bird almost invariably 

 returns to the eggs and makes a new nest to hold them. He was 

 most careful to preserve the Lapwings on his land as they 

 " fed on the beetles that come out of wireworms." 



Lewis R. W. Loyd. 



GREAT SKUA IN CARNARVONSHIRE. 



With one exception, apparently much doubt is reflected upon 

 the accuracy of the reports of the occurrences of the Great 

 Skua {Stercorarius s. skua) in North Wales so that it may be 

 of interest to state that on August 25th, 1912, I watched one 

 in the Conway estuary for well over an hour as carefully and 

 closely as circumstances permitted. I was better able to form 

 an idea of its size when it joined a small party of Herring-Gulls, 

 from the young of which it differed considerably in the 

 intensity of its bro^^-n feathers ; indeed, from a distance it 

 had every semblance of being wholly black. The shape of 

 its short tail was rounded, and its wings, which appeared to 

 be more pointed than those of the Gulls, reminded me of the 

 Manx Shearwater and Gannet, but it did not come near enough 

 for me to see its hooked bill. Its presence in the estuary was 

 a source of considerable annoyance to the terns, from which 

 it purloined fish. It settled on the water some three or four 

 times whilst I watched it but did not remain there more than 

 a minute or two at a time. The bird is apparently an addition 

 to the avifauna of the county. Richard W. Jones. 



[Mr. H. E. Forrest, in the Fauna of N. Wales, p. 393, 

 apparently overlooked the record of a Great Skua seen in 

 Holyhead Harbour on July 20, 1903, bv Professor C. J. 

 Patten {cf. Zoologist, 1904, p. 75).— F.C.R.J.] 



