POMARINE SKUA. 349 



STERCOEARIUS POMARINUS^. 



POMARINE SKUA. 



(Plate 55.) 



Stercorarius striatus, Bri'ss. Orn. vi. p. 152, pi. 13. fig. 2 (17G0, juv.). 



Lestris pomarinu.*, Temm. Man. cTOrn. p. ol4 (1815) ; et auctorum plurimorum 



— Naumami, {Audubon), (Baird, Brewer c^- Ridf/xvay), Bonaparte, &c. 

 Stercorarius pomarinus {Temm.), Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxxii. p. 158 (1819). 

 Cataractes pomarina {Temm.), Steph. Shale's Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. 1, p. 216 (1826). 

 Lestris striatus {Briss.), Eyton, Hist. Bar. Brit. B. p. 53 (1836). 

 Coprotlieres pomarinus {Temm.), Reich. Nat. St/st. Viic/. p. v (1852). 

 Lestris pomarhina {Temm.), Preyer, Reise Island, p. 417 (1862). 

 Lestris pomatorliinus {Temm.), Sclater, Ibis, 1862, p. 297. 

 Stercorarius pomatorliinus {Temm.), Neivton, Baring-GoukTs Iceland, p. 418 (1863). 



The Pomarine Skua appears to have been first discovered by Pallas, who 

 remarked that in the Buffon^s Skuas from Kamtschatka the two centre 

 tail-feathers were not pointed, and asked the question whether this dif- 

 ference ought to be regarded as specific. In 1810 Meyer (Taschenbuch, ii. 

 p. 490) described and figured a Pomarine Skua under the name of Larus 

 parasiticus, Linn. ; but it was not until 1815 that Temminck proved its 

 distinctness from BuSbn''s Skua, and gave it the name it now bears. 



The first example of the Pomarine Skua known to have been obtained 

 in the British Islands is one now in the British Museum, said to have been 

 killed at Brighton and purchased in 1819 at the sale of the celebrated 

 Bullock collection. Another example, said to have been killed near Dover, 

 was sold at the same time. Since that date the Pomarine Skua has been 

 found to be a more or less common winter visitor to our islands, having 

 been obtained on most parts of the coasts of Scotland and England, but 

 more abundantly, as is usually the case, in the east than in the west. It 

 sometimes occurs in large numbers, as, for instance, in the autumn of 1879, 

 when thousands were seen off the Yorkshire coast, and in the autumn of 

 1880, when smaller flights were observed. In Ireland it is much less 



* Preyer's suggestion that Temminck's name was derived from irajxa (an operculum) 

 and pi^ds (of the nostril) is very ingenious, but has not a shadow of evidence to support it. 

 The Pomarine Skua does not differ from the other Skuas in the structure of its nostrils, but 

 is remarkable as being by far the most marine of these very marine birds ; and probably 

 Temminck adopted the name under the impression that it was a legitimate contraction of 

 " permarinus ; '' but, right or wrong, his name ought to stand as it is. 



