OUR PETS. 71 



beautiful and handsome bird, but did not prove a very 

 successful pet ; for having experienced the sweets of 

 liberty, he never became very familiar. We clipped his 

 wings, and kept him in the garden, to the great disgust 

 of our Lesser black-backed gull, who evidently regarded 

 him as an interloper, and would fain have murdered, or 

 at least extruded him, had he been able ; but soon learn- 

 ing that he was no match for the Glaucus, he restricted 

 his ill temper to sulking and complaining. We kept 

 our Glaucus in captivity for some months ; till at last, 

 not having noticed that his pinions required shortening, 

 Jie took advantage of what was, for him at least, a 

 favourable storm of wind, to make his escape, and we 

 never saw him more. 



The Great skua or " Bonxie " is another of the gull 

 tribe which we occasionally numbered among our pets. 

 This bold and powerful bird, with his eminently robust 

 frame and chocolate-coloured plumage, a king amongst 

 the gulls, fierce and almost rapacious in his habits, is 

 now rare in Shetland, where he appears about the end 

 of April, leaving again in autumn, after the breeding 

 season is over. A few pairs breed on the isolated 

 island of Foula, a few on Eooness Hill, and a few on 

 Hermaness, the most northern promontory of Unst. 

 Their numbers, however, have latterly become thinned ; 

 the high market-price of their eggs, and the wanton, 

 pitiless cupidity of rambling tourists, who thought no 

 shame to shoot down the noble birds even in the 

 middle of the breeding season, combining to all but 

 exterminate the Great skua. It is to be hoped, now 



