220 THE SKUAS 



besides acting in a similar way to members of their own species. 1 

 Many examples which passed through his hands had these feathers 

 cut off, though in all other respects in perfect adult plumage. To 

 complicate matters still further, a melanic form also exists, but 

 is by no means common. Not only is the plumage of this form 

 a very dark brown (almost black), but the bill and feet are also 

 black. An interesting series of figures of the different stages 

 of plumage and the two forms will be found in Booth's Rough Notes, 

 vol. iii. 



Like the other skuas, the pomatorhine is a pirate, but mainly 

 confines his attentions to the smaller Gulls, such as the kittiwake, 

 the common-gull, and the Terns. In the North Sea most of the 

 food is procured by the gulls at dawn, when the nets are drawn. 

 After this, both gulls and skuas will remain sitting quietly and 

 contentedly on the water in fine weather, only rising occasionally on 

 the wing when any of the smaller Gulls approach the skuas too 

 closely. On many occasions pomatorhine-skuas have been seen 

 picking up food for themselves. Von Heuglin states that they prey 

 freely on lemmings in Novaya Zemlya, hovering over them in the air, 

 and stooping on them like a hawk, as Buffon's skua also does ; while 

 carrion of all kinds is also eagerly devoured, dead mammals, birds, or 

 fish, as well as the excreta and castings of the larger mammals. 



Although the range of this species during the breeding season is 

 so extensive, and the bird itself is not rare, records of actual breeding 

 are extraordinarily few. The earliest authentic information on the 

 subject is provided by Yon Middendorff, who found it breeding in 

 numbers on the tundra of the Taimyr peninsula. He first observed 

 it on June 19 (N.S.), and on July 20 found the first nest, a mere 

 depression in the moss, containing two eggs. This was in lat. 74 N., 

 and above 744 the species was not met with. Excepting only 



1 Nelson, Birds of Yorkshire, ii. p. 701. (It is interesting to compare this with Mr. E. W. 

 Nelson's observations in Alaska, quoted later.) 



1 In Spitsbergen the ivory-gull is treated in the same way. Eaton saw one seized by the 

 tail (Zoologist, 1874, 3812). 



