498 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



I may mention that an unusually dark specimen in the precise 

 plumage figured by Swainson in the ' Fauna Boreali Americana,' 

 was sent to me for exhibition at a meeting of the Natural History 

 Society of Glasgow, by William Boyd, Esq., Greenock: it had 

 been shot in the Outer Hebrides some time previously. 



Mr Harvie Brown informs me that he found a quantity of zoo- 

 phytes (Actinia) in the stomach of one of these birds, which he 

 shot in Sutherlandshire last year. 



BUFFON'S SKUA. 



LESTRIS BUFFONII. 



ON the mainland of the West of Scotland this Skua is only a 

 straggler; but it is probably a regular summer visitant to the 

 outer islands. A specimen was shot in Skye, in the autumn of 

 1855, and exhibited at a meeting of the Royal Physical Society of 

 Edinburgh; and in the summer of 1863 I examined a pair that 

 were shot on the island of Wiay by Colin M'Rury, Esq., surgeon, 

 as they hovered over a marsh where there were nests of Richard- 

 son's Skua and other birds. The likelihood is they had a nest on 

 the spot. Wiay is a small island lying to the south-east of Benbe- 

 cula, and distant from it about a quarter of a mile : it is two miles 

 in length, and in breadth about a mile and a half. The ground is 

 chiefly heath and peat moss, and there is a small fresh water loch 

 on it frequented by the usual wading birds of the adjoining islands. 

 At the south-east end there is a range of high and nearly perpen- 

 dicular rocky cliffs, the principal elevation of which is called the 

 Eagle's Crag, and is about 300 feet in height. On this cliff a sea 

 eagle had a nest for many years, but is supposed to have deserted 

 the place in 1849. The snowy owl has also been observed fre- 

 quenting the island. This remote spot has only one house upon 

 it, inhabited by a shepherd and his family : the island supports 

 about a hundred cattle besides a few sheep; and it is a likely - 

 place, from its unfrequented aspect, to attract such birds as may 

 have been disturbed, or driven from other places. About the 

 centre of the island the ground rises to some height, forming a hill, 

 conspicuous at a considerable distance. Here, as elsewhere in the 

 Hebrides, there are no trees, the entire surface being covered with 

 grass and heather. 



