248 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



robbing other Gulls of their food by attacking them 

 in the air, and forcing them to disgorge their recently 

 swallowed meals of fish or carrion ; but the Great 

 Skuas, as I am positively assured by a native of one 

 of the Shetland Isles, frequently pursue, capture, and 

 devour Kittiwakes and other birds, and the present 

 species no doubt also assaults such birds as it can 

 master in the same manner, and with the same 

 purpose. I observed about a dozen of this species 

 from my yacht as we lay becalmed in the Gulf of 

 Gaeta in January 1874, hanging about a large flock 

 of the Black-headed Gull, Lams melanocephahis, 

 and continually robbing them of their food in the 

 way that T have described ; these Skuas were varied 

 in plumage from the white-breasted, yellow-necked 

 form, to a uniform very dark brown ; I shot one 

 of these sombre-coloured birds from the deck of the 

 yacht. The flight of these birds is very swift and 

 Hawk-like, and their claws are much curved and 

 very sharp, in fact the name of " Sea-Hawk," which 

 is applied to them on some parts of our coasts, is very 

 appropriate. A pair of Great Skuas sent to me in 

 1891 from a nest in Shetland habitually stand upon 

 and tear up their food in a truly raptorial fashion. 



212. BUFFON'S SKUA. 



Stercorarius parasiticus. 



This is the smallest of the European Skuas and is 

 considered to be the least common of the family in 

 the British Islands, but it is the only species of its 

 genus that has, to my knowledge, occurred more 

 than once in Northamptonshire ; I quote the first 



