GREAT—GREAT. 107 
Great Ox-EyvE: The GREAT TITMOUSE. Occurs in 
Merrett’s list. Turner has “ Great Oxei.” 
Great Pecey: The WHITETHROAT. (Leicestershire.) 
Great Prep Mountain Finca: The SNOW-BUNTING. 
Great Prover: The STONE-CURLEW. (Yarrell.) 
Great Pur: The COMMON TERN. (Norfolk.) 
Great RED-HEADED Wiceon: The COMMON POCHARD. 
Occurs in Willughby. 
GREAT REED-WARBLER [No. 135]. The name is found 
in Gould (‘‘ Birds of Europe”) as Great Sedge Warbler. 
Yarrell (Ist ed.) calls it the Thrush-like Warbler. 
Great Scart or Great ScaRVE: The CORMORANT. (Pro- 
vincial.) 
Great SEDGE WaRBLER: The GREAT REED-WARBLER. 
(Gould.) 
GREAT SHEARWATER [No. 325]. The name is found in 
Yarrell (1st ed.) as Greater Shearwater. It is the Cinereous 
Shearwater of Selby and the Dusky Shearwater of Eyton. 
GREAT SHRIKE: The GREAT GREY SHRIKE. 
GREAT SKUA [No. 439]. Often called the Common Skua, 
but it is nowhere very common, breeding only in small 
protected colonies in the Shetlands and visiting the other 
parts of our coasts in winter. It appears to be first men- 
tioned by Willughby and Ray, who term it “our Catar- 
racta”’ and identify it with the “Cornish Gannet”’ and 
also Hoier’s Skua of Clusius. They remark that “the 
Cornish Gannet doth constantly accompany the sholes of 
Pilchards, still hovering over them in the air. It pursues 
and strikes at these fish with that violence that they catch 
it with a strange artifice. They fasten a Pilchard to a 
board, ‘which they fix a little under water. The Gannet, 
espying the Pilchard, casts himself down from on high 
upcn it with that vehemence that he strikes his bill clear 
through the board, and dashes out his brains against it, 
and so comes to be taken.” This habit, however, was 
obviously fastened erroneously on the present species, as 
it is a trait of the true GANNET. It is called Brown and 
Ferruginous Gull by Pennant (1766) in the text, but “Skua ” 
simply on the plate, and the writers succeeding him up 
to Montagu call it “Skua Gull.” The name Skua dates 
from Hoier the correspondent of Clusius, who sent the 
latter a species from the Feroe Islands under this name. 
It is probably an attempted imitation of the cry of the 
bird. 
