354 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



time an old bird of the same species was killed at Yar- 

 mouth, and is now in the possession of Hunt. N.B. 

 The weather was mild at the time." And again on 

 the 19th October of the same year, "Mr. Youell informs 

 me that about a week since a young- arctic gull, answer- 

 ing to the black-toed gull of Latham, was killed at Yar- 

 mouth." These specimens are also mentioned in the 

 " Catalogue of Norfolk and Suffolk Birds." In his 

 " List " Hunt says, " this species is extremely rare 

 [probably meaning in the adult state] : — Girdlestone, 

 Esq., some few years ago sent the writer of this a speci- 

 men alive, which is now in his collection." This may 

 possibly have been the adult bird which Mr. Whitear 

 says was " killed " at Yarmouth and was given to Hunt. 

 Mr. Lubbock, in a MS. note, mentions an arctic skua 

 having been shot at Wells, in the winter of 1830-1. The 

 Pagets say of " Cattarractes 'parasiticus. Both this and 

 its young, the black-toed gull, have occasionally been 

 shot." A Richardson's skua in the Lombe collection at 

 the Norwich Museum was shot at Little Melton, on the 

 27th October, 1834. Messrs. Gurney and Fisher, in 

 their "List" (1846), state that immature birds in 

 various stages of plumage are occasionally found in 

 autumn, but that the adults are rare ; and in the " Zoolo- 

 gist," p. 1956, they thus notice the occurrence of this 

 species in Sei)tember, 1847 — "We have also to record 

 the capture at different parts of the coast of four speci- 

 mens of Richardson's skua, two of which were in imma- 

 ture and the other two in adult plumage." In the same 

 year and month Mr. Dowell writes, " Richardson's 

 skua has been uncommonly numerous off the Blakeney 

 coast this month : May brought me two, one of this 

 year, the other of last ; and on the 16th Dolignon killed 

 another ; we saw four or five more the same day." We 

 may, therefore, infer that this species was unusually 

 abundant in September, 1847.'^ Again, on September 

 9th, 1848, Mr. Dowell writes, "For the last fortnight 

 these birds have frequented Blakeney Harbour ; two or 



* It seems not impossible that some of these might have been 

 pomatorhine skuas, which was then thought to be a much rarer 

 species than it has since proved to be. 



