POMATORHINE SKUA. 351 



stress of weather would naturally do, " in our harbours 

 and minor inlets. Once inshore they came directly under 

 the notice of gunners and collectors, who would other- 

 wise have been quite unconscious of their passage ; their 

 usual line of flight being probably from thirty to forty 

 miles out at sea." 



" That the number of pomatorhine skuas, in par- 

 ticular, should have been so remarkable is due, I imagine, 

 to an equally simple cause and effect, viz., the enormous 

 shoals of herrings on our coast during the past autumn, 

 and of sprats. . . . Such a preponderance of their 

 finny prey would naturally attract gulls and skuas — 

 fishers and ' pirates ' alike — to one common feast, and 

 as the direction of the shoals would be indicated by 

 these birds to the smacksmen, their vessels would 

 become the rendezvous of successive arrivals from the 

 north, both of pomatorhine and other skuas. With 

 calm seas and a superabundance of food one can imagine 

 no instinctive force, at that period of the season, suffi- 

 cient to induce these birds to quit their ' happy hunting- 

 grounds ' and resume their southward movement, and 

 thus their accumulated forces within a certain area 

 (instead of passing day by day in their accustomed 

 flocks) seem to have been suddenly exposed in the North 

 Sea to gales of unusual severity, by which they were 

 driven upon our shores — simultaneously almost from 

 the Tees to Lynn Wash, and thence along the project- 

 ing coast of Norfolk to Breydon and the mouth of the 

 Yare." 



The month of October, from about the 14th, was 

 marked by extreme barometric oscillations, accompanied 

 by gales of wind and driving showers, and during one 

 of these from the north-west, on the 14th, towards after- 

 noon, pomatorhine skuas commenced to pass Redcar, as 

 recorded by Mr. T. H. Nelson, in the " Zoologist," 1880, 

 p. 18, in small flocks of seven or eight coming from the 

 eastward and seaward, until by dusk Mr. Nelson com- 

 putes that several hundreds, perhaps thousands, had 

 passed. The first Norfolk specimen was obtained by 

 Lord Coke, at Holkham, on the 15th. On the 16th, as 

 observed by Mr. George Cresswell, of Lynn, a great 

 many made their appearance about Wolferton, on the 



