Robbers of the Air 



lands, and would long ago have become extinct as a 

 breeder in that archipelago had it not been for the 

 kindness of proprietors in Unst and Foula who rendered 

 it the only assistance of any value, viz., that of 

 personal protection on the spot. The Edmondstons of 

 Unst rendered yeoman service for long years in this 

 way, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Wild 

 Birds is now praiseworthily carrying on the good work. 

 I advocated it warmly for all our feathered friends in 

 danger of extinction in my book, " Our Rarer British 

 Breeding Birds," two decades ago, and its effectiveness 

 may be judged from the fact that the watcher of the 

 great skuas on Hermaness has raised the breeding stock 

 of birds there from six pairs to over seventy, and the 

 species has extended its nesting area to the Orkneys. 



This interesting marauder watches with lynx-eyed 

 patience until it has observed a gull catch a fish, when 

 it gives chase and harries the poor fisherman up and 

 down, round and round, until he is compelled to 

 drop his prey. Such is the swift flight of the powerful 

 buccaneer that it can dart through the air and catch the 

 object of its covetous exertions before it reaches the 

 surface of the sea below. During one visit I paid to the 

 bonxies' breeding quarters in Unst I found many head- 

 less herrings lying around nests I examined, but a few 

 years later while making a call at the same season and 

 under precisely similar circumstances there was not a 

 fish of any kind to be seen. Old Henry, the watcher, 

 told me that twenty years ago he had counted as many 

 as sixty herrings lying round one nest. The great skua 

 B 53 



