The Birds of Pembrokeshire. 109 
BUFFON’S SKUA, Stercorarius parasiticus—This, the smallest of 
all the Skuas, also called the Long-tailed Skua, from the 
extreme length of the two central foiz¢ed tail feathers, appears, 
for the main part, to accomplish its migrations along the 
eastern shores of the kingdom, as its appearance upon our 
western coasts are so irregular as to be quite accidental. In 
the stormy autumn of 1891 a number of these Skuas were blown 
into the Bristol Channel, and many were obtained upon the 
opposite coasts of Devon and Somerset, and some, no doubt, 
put in at Milford Haven, but we are without record of any. 
The only county specimen of which we have knowledge is a 
young bird in the plumage of its first autumn that was sent to us 
for examination by Mr. C. Jefferys, of Tenby, where it had been 
shot while flying over the South Sands one day in the autumn 
of 1889 or 1890. We were able at once to decide that it was a 
young Buffon’s Skua, from the distinguishing test furnished by 
Mr. Howard Saunders in his very useful Manuai of British 
Birds. He points out that the “ readiest distinction, at any age, 
is to be found in the shafts of the primaries. These are a// white 
in the Arctic (Richardson’s) Skua, whereas in the Long-tailed 
Skua ¢he two outer ones only on each side are white, the rest 
being dusky.” Our friend, Mr. W. S. M. D’Urban, of Exmouth, 
possesses an example of Buffon’s Skua, from the coast of South 
Wales, one that was shot in January, 1892, at Rumney, near 
Cardiff. All the Skuas are carnivorous, and besides feeding on 
fish, will greedily devour dead animals, and will strike down and 
eat other birds. A specimen of Buffon’s Skua, obtained some 
years ago in Somerset, had actually struck down a Ring Dove, a 
bird as large as itself, upon which it was feeding, when it was 
disturbed and shot by a keeper. 
STORM-PETREL, Pvocel/aria pelagica.—This tiny Petrel, commonly 
known by the name of “ Mother Carey’s Chicken,” is resident 
on Skomer Island, where it nests in the chinks of an old wall on 
the top of the cliff, and probably nests also on other islands off 
the Pembrokeshire coast. When we were on Skomer on the 
