636 LARID^. 



with which it appears to have been erroneously mixed up, 

 and with which its measurements do not coincide. 



The Arctic bird from Hudson's Bay, figured by Edwards, 

 in his Natural History, plate 148, described as having the 

 wing only twelve inchesjong when closed, the middle tail- 

 feathers thirteen inches long, and the middle toe but one 

 inch and a half in length, is, I think, without doubt, from 

 these particulars, as well as the peculiar form of the tail- 

 feathers, an adult male of Buffon's Skua ; but Edwards' 

 plate 149, representing a female brought by Mr. Isham 

 from the same locality, and said to exceed it a little, is a 

 younger bird, and probably belongs to the species last 

 described, namely, Sir John Richardson's Skua, both 

 species being known to inhabit North America. An 

 adult specimen killed in this country is preserved in the 

 British Museum; and the Zoological Society, in 1832, 

 received this species from Orkney, with skins of the three 

 other British species of this genus, and of the Ivory Gull. 

 Young birds of BufFon's Skua in the brown plumage of 

 their first autumn have been killed in the vicinity of the 

 Tyne, and on the coast of Durham, in the month of 

 September ; and Mr. John Hancock, of Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne, obtained a mature individual that was shot near 

 Whitburn, in the county of Durham, at the end of 

 October, 1837. It has since been procured at Thetford 

 and in Huntingdonshire. 



M. de Selys Longchamps says, this species has been 

 obtained on the coast of Dunkirk and Picardy. 



BufFon's Skua visits Norway, Greenland, and Iceland. 

 Sir John Richardson says, "It inhabits the Arctic sea- 

 coasts of America and Europe in the summer, migrating 

 to the more temperate parts in winter. Numerous spe- 

 cimens were brought home by the late expeditions from 

 Melville Peninsula, the North Georgian Islands, Baffin's 



