326 THE SKUAS 



that season sent nearly two hundred and seventy eggs to England 

 from the fells of Lapland. 1 But Manniche's observations take us a 

 step further. In the summer of 1907 (the year following a lemming 

 year, when the birds had bred in considerable numbers), the skuas 

 arrived at the usual time, each couple taking possession of its district 

 and guarding it in the usual way. For a few days they waited about, 

 perching on boulders and watching the lemming holes as in the 

 previous year. This time, however, the holes were empty and the 

 lemmings were absent, and before long the skuas gave up the useless 

 task of watching the empty holes and took to pursuing Lepidoptera 

 and other insects. By the end of June they had begun to flock 

 together, and a few days later disappeared altogether from the country. 

 The stomachs of the birds shot contained chiefly insects, and 

 occasionally leaves of Salix arctica and remains of other plants, but no 

 trace of lemmings. At so late a date it would have been scarcely 

 possible for these birds to have bred in any other locality, so we are 

 forced to the conclusion that in such seasons they do not breed at all 

 in the high north at any rate. Probably this is true also of many 

 other Arctic birds. Another curious fact in connection with the 

 difference in the seasons is that while in the lemming year many small 

 parties of immature birds in the second and third years' plumage 

 were seen hunting lemmings, not a single immature bird was seen 

 during the following season. In more southerly breeding-places, 

 probably some pairs breed every season, principally, no doubt, owing 

 to the fact that there is a sufficiency of food from other sources. In 

 Greenland the young are fed for the first few days principally with 

 insects, but while quite young they are able to eat lemmings, which 

 the parent-birds hunt, eat, and afterwards disgorge before them. 2 But, 

 on the other hand, H. W. Wheelwright only found remains of the 

 lemming on one occasion in the stomachs of birds shot on the Lapland 

 fells, and in one other case found remains of a small mouse. The 



1 Ootheca Wolleyana, ii. p. 356. 



2 A. L. V. Manniche, The Terrestrial Mammals and Birds of North-east Greenland 

 (Meddelelser om Grfnland), Bd. xlv. p. 177. 



