POMATOEHINE SKUA. 349 



From various sources I have been able to compile the 

 following list of early examples of the pomatorhine skua 

 which are known to have been obtained in this county. 

 The first in point of date would be the original of a large 

 coloured drawing by Miss Anna Gurney, now at North- 

 repps, of an immature specimen, which was taken at 

 that place in October, 1822 ; the bird itself was not 

 preserved. In the " Lombe collection," at the Norwich 

 Museum, is an immature specimen which was shot on 

 October 27th, 1834, at Little Melton, near Norwich, 

 more than twenty miles in a direct line from the sea. 

 In his notes, under date of October 17th, 1848, the wind 

 at the time blowing hard from the north-east, Mr. 

 Dowell mentions seeing four pomatorhine skuas near 

 Blakeney, three of which he shot; and on the 30th 

 October of the same year an immature specimen, now in 

 the Museum of the University of Cambridge, was shot 

 at Elveden (on the Suffolk side of the border) ; Mr. 

 Stevenson has also notes of two others killed at Yar- 

 mouth early in November, 1848, in which year this 

 species appears to have been unusually abundant. Mr. 

 Newcome has an adult pomatorhine skua in his 

 collection, killed on Lakenheath fen (also a short 

 distance into the county of Suffolk), in November, 

 1850 ; and an immature example, presented to the 

 Norwich Museum by Professor Newton, in 1860, was 

 procured in the same locality many years ago ; an adult 

 bird, also in Mr. Newcome's collection, was shot at 

 Hockwold, in September, 1854. The year 1857 produced 

 several of these birds in the month of October; and 

 in the autumn of 1858, as I learn from Mr. Stevenson's 

 note-book, " when the common and Richardson's skuas 

 were unusually plentiful in the ' roads,' two or three 

 specimens of the pomatorhine were also shot from 

 the herring smacks off Yarmouth. The first of these, 

 killed on the 24th October, was in rapid progress to 

 maturity. A very fine adult male, in the possession of 

 Captain Longe, caught in a rabbit net, on Winterton 

 Common, and a young one in the same collection, taken 

 off the coast, were obtained in November of the same 

 year" (1858). 



Others are recorded for 1865, 1867, 1868, 1869, 



