STERCORARIUS LONGICAUDA. 553 
STERCORARIUS LONGICAUDA, Vieillot. 
BUFFON’S SKUA. 
In the year 1855 I had supposed eggs of this bird given me by a 
gentleman of honour in East Finmark, of whose genuineness he was 
very confident, as he had taken them himself. I had often seen the 
bird upon his coast. But last summer, on again paying a visit to 
my friend, I found that, in fact, he did not know Richardson’s Skua, 
which is the commoner bird of the two, and the only species I could 
find breeding on the coast of East Finmark [§§ 4704-4706]. In 
the meantime in crossing the elevated lands of the watershed 
between the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean in the spring of 1857, I 
had come upon a small colony of Buffon’s Skua, and I had found a 
nest with one egg [§ 4714] from which I had shot both the birds. 
They were the first Buffon’s Skuas in the fresh state that I had ever 
had in my hands, and I was delighted to find how distinct they were 
as a species from Richardson’s Skua. The egg was also much less 
than any I have before seen attributed to this bird, whether from 
Norway or Greenland. The weather allowed of no delay, and I was 
obliged to leave this little colony with instructions to my attendants 
to endeavour to find some more eggs at the same spot on their journey 
back, and they did so find two eggs [§ 4715]. It seems, then, that 
this bird breeds far inland cn mountain moors, where it feeds upon 
insects, berries, and, doubtless, lemmings when they are to be had. 
[The foregoing paragraph from Mr. Wolley’s Sale Catalogue of 1858, and 
the three entries immediately following (§§ 4714-4716), contain all that is 
known of his discovery of the breeding of this species in Lapland. Whether 
he was the first to find it there Ido not take upon myself to say. The 
supposed eggs, two in number, given to him in 1855, by Pastor Sommerfelt, 
the gentleman mentioned above, were obtained—one by the Pastor himself, 
who shot the birds from it in a marsh near Nyborg, 3 July, 1852, and the 
other brought to him by a Lapp from Karlebottn, 20 June, 18538—and, as well 
as two more, taken at the same time and place as the last, which he gave to 
me in 1855, are still in my possession. They are somewhat above the average 
size of those of Buffon’s Skua, but not so much so as to preclude the 
possibility of their belonging to that species, which was no doubt abundant in 
those two great Lemming-years. Nevertheless, I think it safest not to 
include them here. As before observed (vol. i. pp. 479, 480), Pastor 
Sommerfelt was at that time quite new to the country, and being of a 
hopeful temperament, was naturally given to think the best of what he met 
with. Moreover, and this is important, he did not know the difference 
between the two species until Mr. Wolley pointed it out to him in 1857, so 
that, without the least imputation of his veracity, he can hardly be regarded. 
PART III. oes 
