POMERINE SKUA. 609 



pale green, the larger end blotched and spotted with two 

 shades of reddish-brown ; the length two inches three 

 lines, by one inch six lines and a half in breadth. 



In the young bird, from which our figure is taken, the 

 cere and base of the bill are greenish-brown, the curved 

 point black; the irides very dark brown; feathers of the head 

 and neck clove-brown, with narrow margins of wood-brown; 

 back, scapulars, tertials, and upper tail- coverts umber- 

 brown, each feather margined with wood-brown, these 

 margins being broadest on the tertials, the lower part of the 

 back, and the upper tail-coverts; great wing-coverts nearly 

 uniform umber-brown ; wing-primaries blackish-brown, the 

 shafts of these feathers, and a considerable portion of the 

 inner webs white ; tail-feathers umber-brown, the two 

 middle tail-feathers in this young bird not more than half 

 an inch longer than the next feather on each side ; chin, 

 throat, breast, belly, and vent mottled with buff-coloured 

 brown, produced by narrow alternate transverse lines of 

 clove-brown, and wood-brown ; under tail-coverts broadly 

 barred across with umber-brown and wood-brown; legs and 

 base of the toes yellow, anterior part of the toes and their 

 intervening membranes black. 



The whole length of this bird to the end of the tail- 

 feathers next the central pair, twenty inches ; wing from 

 the anterior bend fourteen inches and a quarter. The com- 

 parative measurements in an adult bird would be twenty- 

 one inches, and fifteen inches. I have seen a specimen of 

 the Pomarine Skua in the collection of Mr. Bond, which 

 was obtained alive when a young bird in the varied plumage 

 of its first year which assumed the uniform chocolate brown 

 plumage during its second year ; some specimens barred 

 across the breast have been named Lestris striatus, as 

 noticed by Mr. Eyton; and I have seen two fine old birds, 



VOL. III. R R 



