POMATORHINE SKUA. 697 



and some seasons are not seen at all, but it must be observed that the 

 young birds of the next species are often mistaken for it, and are not 

 easily discriminated. I have not seen a mature bird on this coast." 



In considering the status of this bird in Yorkshire it 

 will be found that, until the year 1879, ^ was deemed to be 

 an uncertain and rather scarce autumn or winter visitant 

 to the coast, and, as a rule, only immature examples were met 

 with, the adults being almost unknown, or very rare ; and the 

 locality most favoured by its presence was the famous Head- 

 land of Flamborough ; true it is that Allis, in his Report 

 on the Birds of Yorkshire (1844), mentioned that in some 

 years considerable numbers occur near Scarborough, and his 

 friend, Arthur Strickland, remarked that young birds are 

 in some years not uncommon, but he had never seen a mature 

 specimen on this coast. Several immature birds are reported 

 from Flamborough in the " sixties " ; others in 1874, together 

 with two adults ; and one adult in the autumn of 1875 is 

 recorded. On the Cleveland coast J. Hogg referred to it 

 as a rare winter visitant before 1845 ; while later I have notes 

 of two immature birds one in January 1876, and another 

 in October 1877. Thus matters stood until October in the 

 year 1879, when there occurred on the east coast of Britain 

 one of those extraordinary visitations, or irruptions, which 

 tend to disarrange the preconceived theories formed respecting 

 the movements of birds. It was my good fortune to be an 

 eye-witness in Yorkshire of this most remarkable migration 

 of Skuas, and to be able to give at first hand an account 

 of it, without which a history of the Birds of Yorkshire would 

 be incomplete. 



In the early part of October, in the year mentioned, 

 great numbers of Skuas were noticed in the Tees Bay, and 

 on the 8th, when off at sea, I procured an adult and two 

 immature Pomatorhines, at the same time seeing some fifty 

 others in small parties of four or five, all flying to the north- 

 west. This in itself was so unusual an occurrence as to excite 

 great interest amongst local naturalists. On the following day 

 seven more Pomatorhines were obtained, and about a hundred 

 others, in small flocks, were noted going in the same direction 



