22 THE BIRD WATCHER 
characters, in any dif@ttion, are more appreciated than 
less extreme ones, by the breeders of fancy birds— 
pigeons, poultry, etc. The uniform brown form, 
however, as being less striking (though extreme at 
one end) is not, I believe, so much noticed as those 
various dunnish shades, which have, in my view, been 
classed all together, as the dark variety. 
In regard to the young birds, I only remember 
those nestling ones which had feathers under the fluff, 
as brown, without any admixture of cream. But 
I had not, at that time, these matters in my mind, 
and, moreover, I did not see many. When older, 
however, and able to fly, all that I have seen have had 
a distinct colouring of their own—for their plumage 
has borne a considerable resemblance to that of the 
Great Skua (Svercorarius catarriactes), being mottled on 
the back with two shades of brown, a darker and 
a lighter one. I got the effect of this when I watched 
young birds flying or standing, and one day I caught 
one whose wing had been injured, and saw that it was 
so. This resemblance is increased by such birds 
wanting the two lance-like feathers in the tail. As I 
say, this mottled brown is the only kind of colouring 
which I have seen in these immature but comparatively 
advanced birds, and my impression is that, in the still 
younger birds, such mottling was either absent or 
not so noticeable. At any rate, I have no clear 
recollection of it. 
My own explanation of all these facts is that 
Stercorarius crepidatus —by my faith, ’tis a pretty 
