THE POMATORHINE-SKUA 221 



Markham's statement that it breeds in Novaya Zemlya, 1 and Henke's 

 assertion that it nests in the Kanin peninsula, no other authentic 

 accounts of the nesting of this skua were to be found till Messrs. H. L. 

 Popham and C. Boyce Hill visited the Yenisei valley in 1895. On 

 their way down the river the steamer ran ashore on a sandbank, thus 

 enabling them to explore a group of small islands called the Brekotsky. 

 On one of these, a large flat marsh, Hill observed a skua, which was 

 presently joined by a second. They were not at all demonstrative, 

 and did not resent intrusion like Buffon's skua, but after long 

 searching and watching one bird settled right in the middle of the 

 marsh. Boyce Hill at once proceeded to the spot, though at times 

 up to his knees in swamp, but fortunately a substratum of ice at a 

 depth of from 18 inches to 2 feet below the surface enabled him to 

 reach the nest, from which the bird rose when he was within a few 

 yards. On shooting the sitting bird it proved to be a pomatorhine- 

 skua. In another part of the island a second nest, which, like the 

 first, contained two eggs, was found under similar conditions. The 

 only other birds which were breeding in the neighbourhood were 

 scaups and rednecked-phalaropes. Later on a third nest was found 

 on the mainland in a much drier site, and this also contained two 

 slightly incubated eggs. 2 There was no real nest, the eggs being laid 

 in a mere depression in the ground, but unfortunately neither writer 

 mentions the date when the eggs were taken. In 1898 Mr. E. A. 

 Mcllhenny's expedition to Alaska obtained a considerable number of 

 nests from the Point Barrow district. E. W. Nelson had already 

 recorded it as common about the Yukon mouth and north to Point 

 Barrow, arriving from May 13 onwards, until by the end of the month 

 from twelve to twenty might be seen daily. He found it clumsy and 

 cowardly as compared with Buffon's and Richardson's skuas, and 

 noticed that it was much bullied by them, the smaller birds beating 

 off their clumsy antagonist by darting down repeatedly at him from 



1 See Markham's A Polar Reconnaissance, p. 334, referred to by Saunders in the first 

 edition of the Manual. 



1 See H. L. Popham, Ibis, 1897, p. 107 ; C. Boyce Hill, Ibis, 1900, p. 526, pi. xi. 



