OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 109 



Great Skua completely undeceived me. When the 

 birds dashed upon me, the sound of their wings at 

 close quarters was like the rush of an express 

 train, and do what I would, I could not avoid in- 

 voluntarily ducking my head in order to escape 

 being struck, for a considerable time. Upon 

 gaining sufficient mastery over my feelings to 

 stand perfectly still, I had my cap knocked off 

 several times over by blows which, when striking 

 rather low down, stung badly. The method of 

 attack is to swoop from a considerable height at 

 a terrific speed, and when sufficiently close to the 

 intruder's head, to drop both feet and hit him with 

 their fronts on the back of the head. As soon as 

 the blow has been delivered the birds shoot up- 

 wards, and circle round for a fresh attack. They 

 never strike the object of their resentment face 

 on. I tried by wheeling round quickly to get 

 them to do this by the calculation of time, but, 

 however close, up they shot, and sailed away with 

 outstretched wings, as seen in our illustration. 



All the nests we examined were made of dead 

 grass and bents in varying quantities. In nearly 

 every case a mock nest had been built not far 

 from the one containing eggs, and the birds have 

 been known, when an original nest became flooded 

 through heavy rains, to convey their eggs to the 

 supplementary structure. 



The eggs, as a rule, number two, but occasion- 

 ally only one, varying in ground colour from light 

 buff to dark olive-brown, spotted and blotched 

 with dark, rusty, or greyish brown, and are easily 

 identified by the presence of the savage parent 

 birds. 



