LONG-TAILED OR BUFFON'S SKUA. 705 



stick in the bird's throat. This bird's greedy nature is often 

 taken advantage of, to lure it to its own destruction, by coast 

 shooters, who throw up a dead Gull or Tern to attract the Skua, 

 which darts to the place, expecting to find a meal for itself, 

 only to be met by a charge of shot. In September 1891 a 

 couple of Skuas came off the sea in the Tees Bay, attracted by 

 a winged Knot that had fallen on the sands near me ; while 

 on another occasion one came to a wounded Tern, ignoring 

 the presence of the shooter, and flying so near to him that he 

 could have touched it with a walking stick. 



An immature specimen in my collection, obtained at 

 Redcar, has unusually large white patches on the carpal joints. 



Vernacular names : Allan or Chaser at Redcar ; and, 

 in common with others of this genus, it receives the cognomen 

 of Morrel Hen at Flamborough. 



LONG-TAILED OR BUFFON'S SKUA. 



Stercorarius parasiticus (L.). 



Bird of passage, irregularly observed in autumn ; adult examples 

 are extremely rare. 



The Long-tailed Skua breeds in northern Norway, Lapland, 

 and within the Arctic circle, migrating, like the others of its 

 genus, southward in winter. 



The first published notice of this bird in the county is, 

 probably, that contained in the Zoologist for 1849 (pp. 2569, 

 2592), where three were recorded by E. T. Higgins as taken 

 on the Yorkshire coast. 



Thomas Allis, in 1844, mentioned it in a negative manner, 

 thus : 



Larus parasiticus. Parasitic Gull A. Strickland says, " I have 

 not met with this bird here, but the young birds are very difficult to 

 discriminate from the last." 



On the Yorkshire seaboard Buffon's Skua is a rather rare 

 bird of passage in autumn, and does not appear to have been 



