114 300 



and will let you come within a few paces of them. Sometimes 

 they feign to be wounded, fluttering with drooping wings along the 

 ground to divert attention from their brood. After the young are 

 hatched they grow exceedingly bold, and, like the terns, when 

 flying past will strike at your head with their wings, though 

 seldom venturing to touch it. 



Being brown in colour, with darkish spots, the eggs are with 

 difficulty distinguished among the heather in which they are de- 

 posited, the nest, if such it can be called, consisting of a few 

 straws only. Probably a set of eggs does not exceed 2, aitd I 

 have often found only 1 incubated. The shell, pyriform in shape, 

 is exceedingly thin and porous, and without gloss; colour light- 

 brown, marked all over with spots of a darker tinge, and a 

 few black wavy lines, especially at the bigger end, where they 

 sometimes collect into the form of a zone. ' Measurement 56 by 

 40 ™™. 



The female generally begins laying about the middle of June; 

 fresh eggs have however been found as late as the 3rd July, and 

 young birds the 2nd July (1872), 



Young in down, about 2 days old (Tamsoen, in the Porsanger 

 Fjord, July 2nd). The entire body browny black, bill black and 

 feet bluish-grey. (From nostrils to tip of bill 8 mm, tarsus 18, 

 middle toe 20 -}- 3V2 ^"')- 



The food of this species varies considerably with the season 

 of the year. In spring and autumn, it probably consists to a 

 great extent of fishes, the possession of which it can successively 

 dispute with the terns and gulls; in summer, they would appear 

 to subsist mainly on insects and the eggs of divers sea-fowl. In 

 the stomachs of individuals shot in Nordland and Finmark in the 

 months of June and July, I have found Colcopfera, particularly 

 Elateres and Harpali, and also Tipulidce; those of others con- 

 tained in addition to insects fragments of egg-shells. Remains of 

 fishes were seldom found. The eggs of the Eider Duck in parti- 

 cular are the object of their depredations, and hence they are 

 everywhere regarded as a noxious bird, the sworn enemy of every 



