GREAT GREAT. 107 



GREAT Ox-ErE : The GREAT TITMOUSE. Occurs in 

 Merrett's list. Turner has " Great Oxei." 



GREAT PEGGY : The WH1TETHROAT. (Leicestershire.) 



GREAT PIED MOUNTAIN FINCH : The SNOW-BUNTING. 



GREAT PLOVER : The STONE-CURLEW. (Yarrell.) 



GREAT PURL : The COMMON TERN. (Norfolk.) 



GREAT RED-HEADED WIGEON : The COMMON POCHARD. 

 Occurs in Willughby. 



GREAT REED-WARBLER [No. 135]. The name is found 

 in Gould (" Birds of Europe ") as Great Sedge Warbler. 

 Yarrel] (1st ed.) calls it the Thrush-like Warbler. 



GREAT SCART or GREAT SCARVE : The CORMORANT. (Pro- 

 vincial.) 



GREAT SEDGE WARBLER: The GREAT REED-WARBLER. 

 (Gould.) 



GREAT SHEARWATER [No. 325]. The name is found in 

 Yarrell (1st ed.) as Greater Shearwater. It is the Cinereous 

 Shearwater of Selby and the Dusky Shearwater of Eyton. 



GREAT SHRIKE : The GREAT GREY SHRIKE. 



GREAT SKUA [No. 439]. Often called the Common Skua, 

 but it is nowhere very common, breeding only in small 

 protected colonies in the Shetlands and visiting the other 

 parts of our coasts in winter. It appears to be first men- 

 tioned by Willughby and Ray, who term it " our Catar- 

 racta " and identify it with the " Cornish Gannet " and 

 also Hoier's Skua of Clusius. They remark that " the 

 Cornish Gannet doth constantly accompany the sholes of 

 Pilchards, still hovering over them in the air. It pursues 

 and strikes at these fish with that violence that they catch 

 it with a strange artifice. They fasten a Pilchard to a 

 board, which they fix a little under water. The Gannet, 

 espying the Pilchard, casts himself down from on high 

 upon it with that vehemence that he strikes his bill clear 

 through the board, and dashes out his brains against it, 

 and so comes to be taken." This habit, however, was 

 obviously fastened erroneously on the present species, as 

 it is a trait of the true GANNET. It is called Brown and 

 Ferruginous Gull by Pennant (1766) in the text, but " Skua " 

 simply on the plate, and the writers succeeding him up 

 to Montagu call it " Skua Gull." The name Skua dates 

 from Hoier the correspondent of Clusius, who sent the 

 latter a species from the Faeroe Islands under this name. 

 It is probably an attempted imitation of the cry of the 

 bird. 



