PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 199 



Alaska it also takes insects (L. M. Turner). Nothing certain appears to have been 

 recorded as to the food of the young. [F. c. B. J.] 



ARCTIC OR RICHARDSON'S SKUA \8tercararius parasUicus 

 (Ldnnasus) ; Stercorarius crepidatus (Gmelin). Irish lord, robber bird (Devon) ; 

 gull Allan (Northumberland) ; scoutie Allan (Orkneys) ; shooi, boatswain 

 (Shetlands). French, labbe parasite ; German, Schmarotzer Raub-Mowe ; 

 Italian, labbo]. 



1. Description. The Arctic-skua is distinguished by the long-pointed tail 

 feathers and the white shafts to the primaries, the latter being characteristic at 

 all ages. The sexes are alike, and there is no marked seasonal change of coloration. 

 (PL 100 in vol. ii.) Length, including the "tail-streamers," 20 in. [508*00 mm.]. 

 This species is very variable in coloration, presenting two more or less distinct 

 phases a light and a dark phase but the extremes are linked by gradations due to 

 interbreeding, which make description difficult. In the dark phase, which is most 

 frequently met with in the most northerly latitudes, the crown is dull black, and the 

 rest of the plumage dark sooty brown suffused with slate-grey on the upper parts, 

 and with a conspicuous bronze-yellow tinge on the ear-coverts and sides of the neck. 

 In the light phase the under parts are white or creamy white, this extending to 

 the throat and the sides of the neck, almost to the nape, where it is conspicuously 

 washed with yellow. In some individuals the side of the neck is of a greyish buff, 

 and the yellow is formed by shaft-streaks, giving a striated appearance. Iris hazel. 

 There is considerable individual variation. Legs black. The juvenile plumage is 

 of a uniform sooty brown, rufous margins to the feathers giving a variegated 

 appearance (see p. 205). The adult dress is apparently not completed till after 

 the fifth autumn moult. The young in down are of a uniform sooty brown, 

 slightly paler on the under parts, [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. In Great Britain this skua is only known to breed on the 

 mainland of Scotland in Caithness, as first recorded by Booth, and in Sutherland, 

 where in 1884 Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley were only aware of the existence 

 of one pair of breeding birds, though Mr. A. H. Evans describes the colony as a 

 fair-sized one of late years. On the islands off the west coast it is, however, more 

 numerous : there are two good-sized colonies in the Inner Hebrides, one of about 

 one hundred pairs, according to Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley. On Islay and 

 Jura it breeds commonly ; a single pair nested on Tiree in 1891. In the Outer 



