THE COMMON SKUA. 377 



pitres, and therefore the beak is their offensive weapon ; and 

 when the male birds are roused in defence of the females 

 and the young, neither eagle nor eagle-owl can venture upon 

 their ground with impunity. It is, indeed, rather a hazardous 

 business for man ; and instances are mentioned of those who 

 went into the breeding ground of the birds without sufficient 

 protection to their heads, having their skulls fractured by 

 the repeated thrusts of the bills. The country people who 

 find it necessary to traverse the breeding haunts of the 

 skuas, use a defence against them, something similar to that 

 which the heron uses against hawks, when they gain the sky 

 of him. They carry a long stick armed with a spike or 

 spear at the top ; and when they approach very near the 

 nests, the birds sometimes descend with so much fury and 

 force, as to transfix themselves on the spike. Such birds 

 have, of course, their breeding grounds as much to them- 

 selves as the eagle has her mountain ; and if their habit 

 were to breed as dispersedly as eagles, they would, consi- 

 dering their numbers, drive all the other sea birds from the 

 shores. They do not, however, attack the other birds for 

 the sake of killing them, and eating their flesh, but to make 

 them disgorge the contents of their stomachs, which they regard 

 as a delicacy. This the common skua accomplishes even with 

 the largest of the gulls, though these also are powerful birds, 

 and show fight to the smaller species of skua. Indeed, from the 

 gradation that has been mentioned, there are skuas adapted 

 for levying their contributions upon all the other sea birds 

 which fish on the wing, and rise to a moderate height with 

 loaded stomachs. The flight of the skuas is a bounding and 

 jerking flight, and they appear to know instinctively when 

 the gulls have been successful, and are loaded. In these 

 cases, they drive at the gull with the rush of birds of prey ; 

 and the gulls scream, discharge their load, and make off, the 

 skua descending like an arrow, and seizing it ere it reaches 



