THE ZooLocist—NovemBER, 1875. 4699 
some boatmen happened to see a young duck, at which two or three of 
these big fellows were making swoops. They were very tame, allowing 
one of the men to approach to within about fifteen yards and pelt them with 
stones, and when one of them was hit they only moved rather further off. 
The man went away and left them, but afterwards, having to return to the 
same place, he laid down upon the shingle and went to sleep. He had not 
been dozing long before he was roughly awoke by a tremendous blow on the 
face from one of the great skuas. Again the unprovoked attack was 
repeated, but this time he feigned to be asleep, and, raising his arm as the 
bird came at him, he felled it on to the ground, but it recovered itself and flew 
away. I have no doubt that this story is substantially true, or I would not 
send it to you; and, from what I read of the great skua in books on Natural 
History, that species would seem to have been long noted for the daring 
impetuosity with which it attacks all trespassers upon its breeding-stations. 
Richardson’s skua, and probably all the skuas, have also got the same 
character.—J. H. Gurney, jun. 
Notes on the Autumnal Migration of Lestris Richardsonii and 
L. pomarinus in Killala Bay and the Moy Estuary. By 
Ropert Warren, jun., Esq. 
On reference to the map of Ireland it will be seen that Killala 
Bay opens to the north, and is bounded on the west by the County 
Mayo and on the east by Sligo, and Bartra, a narrow island about 
three miles long is situated right across the inner part of it, 
separating the open bay from the estuary of the River Moy; the 
eastern end of the island being separated from the Sligo side 
by the narrow channel of the Moy, and the western by the little 
channel running from Moyne Abbey. 
When residing with my brother, Mr. E. H. Warren, on the 
island of Bartra, in 1851, we observed the first of the skuas on the 
8th of October, when two flocks of six and eight birds were seen at 
a great height passing towards the south-west; again on the 15th 
we counted seventy-two birds as they crossed the island coming 
from the open sea in small detached flocks, all keeping the same 
course across the country to the south-west. 
On the 16th the flight still continued, and we counted upwards 
of a hundred pass in a very short space of time; but as we were 
only able to watch them for about two hours each morning between 
eight and eleven o’clock, it is very likely that only a small part of 
