The British Skuas. 17 



of the tern and the kitty wake, which, he said, were the birds most 

 commonly victimised. The skuas watched for them coming home 

 from the feeding grounds, and when they were loaded with fish a 

 number of the skuas approached, and by a strong dash and twist 

 or two so frightened the gulls that they immediately dropped what 

 they had procured, and it was seized and swallowed by the skuas 

 long before it reached the water. There were four species of 

 skua in Great Britain. At the head of the family there was the 

 great skua, which breeds in Foula, one of the Shetland Islands. 

 It was protected by law, as well as by the owners of the island, 

 and no squire in the south was half so anxious to protect his 

 pheasants as were the proprietors of Foula to protect their skuas. 

 These birds were in a unique position, and once lost would never 

 be present again. There was no record of the great skua ever 

 having come to our own particular area in the south of Scotland. 

 Sir William Jardine, in his "Naturalist's Library," published 

 about 1842, stated that he had seen it occasionally on the Solway; 

 but there was no fully authenticated account of it having been 

 seen before or since that occasion. Another species, the 

 pamatorhine skua, was only an occasional autumn and winter 

 visitor to this area, and there were exceedingly few records .of its 

 having been captured in this part of the country. In the old 

 records of the Natural History and Antiquarian Society the 

 late Mr Hastings stated that -he had two specimens, one 

 of which was shot at the Old Quay at Glencaple about 

 1863 ; and Mr Hastings had stated that with the excep- 

 tion of another which was got about the same time at 

 Kirkmahoe, not one had occurred in the neighbourhood for 

 thirty years previously. From that time to this the records had 

 been \ery few indeed. One of the birds which belonged to Mr 

 Hastings was, the lecturer believed, now in Kirkcudbright 

 Museum, labelled No. 288. Mr Robert Gray, the historian of 

 the birds of the West of Scotland, stated he had known the occur- 

 rence of this bird in Wigtownshire, Kirkcudbrightshire, and also 

 in Dumfriesshire, but there was no doubt that the Dumfriesshire 

 specimens to which he referred were those mentioned by Mr 

 Hastings. A specimen (which was produced for inspection) was 

 received by the lecturer on 29th October, 1902, and along with it 

 a letter from a fisherman at Glencaple, stating that it had been 



