McCORMICK'S SKUA. 73 



Then, too, they hunt for themselves at sea and on the shore, picking up anything 

 they can find in the shape of fish and crustaceans. They also hunt birds of other 

 species, petrels, for example, and force them to disgorge what they have eaten. This 

 they also do with one another. They are particularly partial to the eggs and young 

 of the Adelie Penguin, and it is their taste for these that in most cases determines 

 their choice of a nesting site. 



The Skuas' real harvest begins as soon as the Adelie Penguin lays its eggs, and 

 the abundance of empty shells about a rookery would be sufficient proof if other 

 testimony were absent. But the Skua even robs its own kind, and in a nesting colony 

 of some 20 or 30 birds, the number that have apparently lost their eggs, or one at 

 least, by robbery is always fairly large. I have seen a Skua dash down upon an 

 unprotected nest a Skua's nest to pick up an egg with its bill with hardly a moment's 

 pause, one might almost say that it was done while on the wing, as the avenging 

 owner of the nest was down on the intruder like a flash, and the stolen egg dropped 

 from a height at our feet disclosed the remains of a half-incubated chick. 



That " dog won't eat dog " is untrue in the south, not only of the sledge-dogs 

 but of the Skuas. Mr. Ferrar gave me a further instance. Near the rookery we killed 

 a Sea-elephant on the beach, and on cutting him up were surrounded by some dozens 

 of skuas, which were soon sitting on all the small headlands around us gorged with bits 

 of blubber. Notwithstanding this abundance of a very favourite food, a nestling 

 Skua which had wandered to the beach was seen, seized, and carried out to sea by 

 one of the Skuas, followed by a clamouring crowd, all eager to rob the owner of its 

 prey. It is when the Ade'lie Penguins have hatched their eggs, however, that the Skua 

 has least trouble in procuring his food. Pouncing upon some unprotected young 

 penguin he attacks its eyes, and soon has the victim at his mercy. 



Hanging round the rookery, with the unmistakable look of a thief, the Skua will 

 run up to a chicken almost as big as himself, drag it by degrees away from the more 

 crowded part of the rookery, and then gradually worry it to death ; eventually tearing 

 a ragged hole in the skin of the back over the kidneys,* which are generally the 

 first, and often the only parts that are touched. The penguin chick pipes his 

 loudest, but the old birds standing round take very little notice. Occasionally one in 

 passing will make a run at the Skua and drive him off for a moment, but the chick is 

 separated from the rest, and the old penguin has no mind to stop and shelter him, so 

 back the Skua comes to complete his work. Literally, in a rookery such as that of 

 Cape Crozier, one cannot walk ten yards without coming on a dead penguin chick. 

 Many of these, as one would expect in a climate where decay is very slow, are dried 

 and flattened mummies, trodden down and trampled into the stones and guano that 

 cover the ground. But an enormous proportion are seen to be fresh victims, if one visits 

 a rookery in January, when the Skuas have not only themselves but their young to feed. 



* Cf. Potts, in ' Zoologist,' 1881, p. 298, on the Kea. F. J. B. 



