230 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



Back : With the mantle dull deep brown with few, if any, chestnut or 

 rufous markings, the feathers often with apparent greyish fringing and a 

 similar appearance at the tips, due to wear. Lower back and rump some- 

 what lighter than mantle. 



Wing: Like the mantle, the quills shading into dirty whitish at their 

 bases and together forming a bar of white very noticeable in flight. The 

 under wing coverts are dark dull brown. 



Tail : Dark dull brown ; short and even with little or no lengthening of 

 the two middle tail feathers. 



Lower parts : The entire lower surface is uniform dull brown, a little 

 paler in shade than the upper surface. 



Bill : Black. Noticeably stout. Tarsus : Black, sometimes mottled 

 with yellow. Toes : Black, the webs a little paler. Iris : Dark hazel 

 brown. 



Immature birds are similar to the adults, except that the crown does 

 not contrast with the sides of the head and face, and the acuminate feathers 

 on the neck have no yellowish shading. 



Young birds of the year are similar to immature birds, but have per- 

 ceptible rufous shading on the lower surface and on the ends of the 

 feathers of the mantle and upper wing coverts. 



Downy young, are light buff below, darkening in tone on the upper 

 parts. 



Geographical Range. Southern Oceans; Straits of Magellan and 

 American Antarctica. The Falkland Islands, South Georgia, Tristan da 

 Cunha, Prince Edward, Marion, Crozets, Kerguelen and Heard Islands. 



New Zealand and adjacent Islands, Australian Seas north to Norfolk 

 Islands, St. Paul and Amsterdam Islands and north to Madagascar and 

 the Comoro Group. 



The Antarctic Skua was not obtained by the Princeton University 

 Expeditions to Patagonia, and the description here given is based on 

 material in the Museum of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences 

 and a fine series in the British Museum of Natural History. 



"The tameness of the birds, in general, was most remarkable. The 

 brown skua gulls (Lestris antarcticus], of which there were numbers, flew 



