254 LARIN^:. CATARACTES. 



thanks in return. The petty squabbles of " namers" are about 

 as amusingly disgusting as the selfish greed of some collec- 

 tors of plants, who rush to the first tuft of " a rare species" 

 they see, and sweep it off " in toto," to the unheeded mor- 

 tification of their unsuspecting companions. This species 

 has once occurred in Ireland. 



Larus Rossii, Richardson, Parry's Second Voyage, App. 

 359 ; Fauna Bor. Amer. ii. 427. Larus rosea, Jardine and 

 Selby, Ornith. Illustr. vol. i. pi. 14. 



GENUS CLIV. CATARACTES. PIRATE-BIRD. 



The birds of which this genus is composed are very 

 nearly allied to the Gulls in their conformation, as well 

 as in many of their habits ; but differ in having a more 

 bold and predatory character, and in living for the most 

 part, like gentlemen, at the expense of the " working classes," 

 the Gulls and Terns, which they force to pay tithes or tri- 

 bute, causing them to disgorge part of their food, which 

 they immediately transfer to their own gullets. Linnaeus 

 considered them as part of his comprehensive genus Larus ; 

 Illiger and Temminck refer them to a separate genus, which 

 they name Lestris ; and others have elevated one species, 

 the largest, to the peerage, under the title of Cataractes 

 Skua, leaving the rest in the genus Lestris, as common rob- 

 bers. I am not sure that the larger bird is altogether en- 

 titled to this distinction. 



Cataractes, then, so named by some of the older as well 

 as modern authors, has the body of a compact and robust 

 form ; the neck of moderate length ; the head large, broadly 

 ovate, anteriorly narrowed. Bill shorter than the head, 

 nearly as broad as high at the base, compressed toward the 

 end, straight, with the tip decurved ; upper mandible cerate, 

 with the ridge broad and rounded, having a shallow groove 

 on each side, the nasal space covered by a thin plate ; nos- 

 trils linear- oblong, much wider anteriorly, pervious, sinus 

 very short, broad, and feathered, edges sharp and inflected, 

 tip very strong, laterally convex, much decurved, thin-edged, 

 rather obtuse ; lower mandible with the intercrural space 

 long and narrow, the branches broad and erect, the angle 

 little prominent, the edges sharp and inflected, the tip com- 



