Aves. 



171 



visit, for they repeatedly darted at our heads, and made a noisy 

 outcry " (p. 74). On the 3rd of February, 1900, some young ones were 

 procured on Possession Ishxnd (p. 236). He also writes : — " At nine 

 o'clock in the evening of the 5th of February we landed in a boat on 

 a pebbly beach at the foot of Mount Melbourne. The place upon 

 which we landed was a pebbly bank, even larger in extent than that 

 at Cape Adare, entirely free from snow and ' ponds,' and occupied 

 by Penguins and Skua-Gulls " (p. 244). 



Dr. Eacovitza's notes on the species as observed by him during 



k-x; 



% 







YOUNG SKUA-GULLS IN NEST. 

 (^By permission of Messrs. Hurst & Blackett.) 



the voyage of the ' Belgica ' are as follows : — " Among the Gavire 

 there was our old friend the Brown Skua-Gull, against whom I have 

 a considerable grudge. One day when I was at the foot of the high 

 cliff on De Cuverville Island, I saw, by the aid of my spy-glass, on 

 a platform in the perpendicular wall, a little tuft which seemed to 

 me not to be formed of moss, but of real grass. It was tlie first time 

 I had made such an identification, so I felt that I must at all liazards 

 try to reach this little platform and capture this unicj^ue specimen of 

 a plant. I laid aside my gun and collecting-bag, and was soon 

 scaling, with the aid of my alpenstock, the wall of the clift". The 



