122 BIRD WATCHING 



other's fault." This little trait, which would seem 

 to raise them nearer humanity, I particularly noted. 

 The mode of attack, when thus aerialy delivered, is 

 the same in all these birds, and, as it seems to me, 

 curiously ineffective. The beak, a powerful weapon, 

 is not employed, nor is a blow which, if it were, 

 might be of real force delivered with one of the 

 wings. Instead, the webbed feet, which would seem 

 to be weak in comparison, and have no talons or 

 grasping power, are made use of in the way I have 

 already described in the case of the two gulls fight- 

 ing, when, after the tussle on the ground, the one 

 was swooped at by the other. 



The following account of the attack of the smaller 

 or Arctic skua, will apply almost equally to the great 

 one. " The bird comes swooping down in a slanting 

 direction, with great speed and impetus, and as it 

 passes over one's head, makes a slight drop with the 

 feet hanging down, so that they administer a flick 

 just on the top of it, as it shoots by. Having made 

 its demonstration, it shoots on and upwards, and turn- 

 ing in a wide sweep, again comes rushing down to 

 repeat it, and so forwards and backwards for perhaps 

 some half-a-dozen times, after which the intervals 

 will become longer, the circling sweeps which fill 

 them up wider and more numerous, till the attacks 

 cease, and the bird flies away." (The great skua, 

 however, will attack almost indefinitely.) " The force 

 of the downward rush is in all cases very great, and 

 the ' swirr ' which accompanies it quite startling, 

 suggesting a larger bird, or something of a more 

 portentous nature altogether. In striking, the bird 

 shoots the feet forward as they dangle, so that they 



