buffon"'s skua. 495 



it appears to have been erroneously mixed up, and witli which 

 its measurements do not coincide. 



The Arctic bird from Hudson's Bay, figured by Edwards, 

 in his Natural History, plate 148, described as having the 

 wing only twelve inches long when closed, the middle tail- 

 feathers thirteen inches long, and the middle toe but one inch 

 and a half in length, is, I think, without doubt, from these 

 particulars, as well as the peculiar form of the tail-feathers, 

 an adult male of BufFon's Skua ; but Edwards'" plate 149, 

 representing a female brought by Mr. Isham from the same 

 locality, and said to exceed it a little, is a younger bird, and 

 probably belongs to the species last described, namely. Dr. 

 Richardson's Skua, both species being known to inhabit 

 North America. An adult specimen killed in this country 

 is preserved in the British Museum ; and the Zoological 

 Society, in 1832, received this species from Orkney, with 

 skins of the three other British species of this genus, and of 

 the Ivory Gull. Young birds of BufFon's Skua in the brown 

 plumage of their first autumn, have been killed in the vicinity 

 of the Tyne, and on the coast of Durham, in the month of 

 September ; and Mr. John Hancock, of Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne, obtained a mature individual that was shot near Whit- 

 burn, in the county of Durham, at the end of October, 1837. 



M. de Selys Longchamps says, this species, which, in his 

 newly-published Fauna of Belgium, is distinguished by the 

 name of Stercoraire a longue queue, has been obtained on 

 the coasts of Dunkirk and Picardy, and also in the vicinity 

 of Lisle. 



Buffon's Skua visits Norway and Iceland. Dr. Richardson 

 says, " It inhabits the Arctic sea-coasts of America and Eu- 

 rope in the summer, migrating to the more temperate parts 

 in winter. Numerous specimens were brought home by the 

 late expeditions from Melville Peninsula, the North Georgian 

 Islands, Baffin's Bay, and Spitzbergen. It resembles the 



