538 Laridce. 



raptorial birds which stand at the head of our list. In habits, 

 too, they are persecuting and exacting, for no sooner do they 

 behold their quieter congeners returning from their fishing 

 excursions, than they give instant chase, and do not desist from 

 harassing their unoffending fellows till they have compelled 

 them to disgorge the fish they have swallowed, and which they 

 seize before it reaches the water, and carry off in triumph. They 

 are known as ' Parasitic Gulls,' because they are supported on 

 the food procured by other Gulls; and 'Brown Gulls,' from 

 their prevailing colour ; while the generic name, lestris, ' robber,' 

 aptly describes them. They are called ' Skua Gulls ' because the 

 cries they utter are supposed to resemble the syllables ' Skui.' 

 They are natives of the Arctic regions, and are often found in 

 very high latitudes. Their flight is performed by a succession of 

 jerks, and is strong and rapid, as indeed is indispensable for 

 such marauders. They are so fierce and bold that they will 

 attack any animal bird or beast and even man, if he should 

 intrude upon their nests ; and they will kill and prey upon 

 other Gulls, splitting open their heads with a single blow of their 

 powerful beak, and rending them in pieces with their crooked 

 talons. Mr. Morres well observes that they ought to be called 

 the 'Bullies of the Sea.' In some respects they show much 

 affinity with the Petrels. 



I have several instances of the occurrence of this bird in 

 Wiltshire : one which I saw in the hands of Mr. Withers, taxider- 

 mist at Devizes, in December, 1857, and which had just been 

 killed by Mr. Hooper, of Lavington, and which Mr. Withers de- 

 scribed to me as the ' Black Gull ' ; another of which the Rev. 

 George Powell wrote me an account, shot at Heytesbury in 

 September, 1863, by Mr. O'Brien, son-in-law of Lord Heytesbury, 

 while partridge-shooting, and which proved to be a young 

 female. Since which Lord Heytesbury tells me a second 

 specimen has been killed in his water-meadows within the last 

 four or five years. Another was also seen in a field of Mr. 

 Norman Wentworth's at Avebury, with a broken wing, and 

 attacked by a number of rooks, in January, 1872, and was 



