RICHARDSON'S SKUA. 631 



Catarades parasiticus, Arctic Skua, SELBY, Brit. Ornith. vol. ii. 



p. 520. 



Lestris Richardsonii, Richardson's Skua, JENYNS, Brit. Vert. p. 282. 

 Lestris, GOULD, Birds of Europe. 



titercoraire Richardson, TEMM. Man. d'Ornith. vol. 



iv. p. 499. 



THREE distinct species of the genus Lestris have been 

 frequently brought together under the name of the Arctic 

 Gull, the Larus parasiticus of Linneus, briefly described in 

 his Fauna Suecica ; and the measurements of this species, 

 as given by M. Nilsson, the Swedish Professor of Natural 

 History at Lund, in his Ornithologia Suecica, vol. ii. 

 p. 182, appear to prove that the true parasiticus of Lin- 

 neus is the same species as that to which Mr. Swainson, 

 in the Fauna Boreali Americana, has attached the name 

 of the distinguished naturalist and companion of Sir John 

 Franklin. As all the five species of the genus Lestris, 

 found in Europe, are visitors to the Arctic Regions, and 

 all are alike parasitic in their habits, ornithologists are in- 

 debted to Mr. Swainson for thus worthily superseding 

 terms which, from the advancement in natural history, have 

 ceased to convey specific distinctions. It visits Greenland. 



Of the species of this genus which visit this country, 

 Sir John Richardson's Skua is the most numerous. Pen- 

 nant, in his time, found it breeding at the islands of Juray, 

 Hay, and Rum, in the Hebrides ; and in his British 

 Zoology gives figures of it in three different states of plu- 

 mage. Mr. J. Macgillivray, who visited the Outer He- 

 brides in the summer of 1840, says, "Richardson's Skua 

 breeds in several spots in the interior of North Uist, and 

 a few stragglers might now and then be observed upon the 

 coasts, chasing the Terns and smaller Gulls." 



In the Orkneys this species has been observed 011 almost 

 every island, but the principal breeding-places are in Hoy 

 and the Holm of Eddy, or Eday, as mentioned by Mr. 



