BUPPIAGUS SKUA ANTARCTICUS. 9 



up. The first eggs were found November 5 ; there being sometimes two 

 and sometimes three in a nest. They were procured at first by the kind 

 assistance of Mr. Stanley, and a length of rope which tied us together, 

 one end being knotted around the waist of ea.ch. One would then 

 remain above and hold on, while the other clambered a little way down 

 the face of the cliff and secured the eggs. After a time, however, I 

 discovered a lot of nests, near a rookery of "rock-hopper" penguins, 

 accessible from below, where, on December 4. the young birds were 

 first observed. Eggs green, with white chalky incrustation. 



The young are most ridiculous-looking objects, being pot-bellied, naked, 

 and perfectly black, and seem to be less advanced in development at 

 the time of hatching than most birds, the bones of the tarsus and foot 

 being not yet ossified. Small fish were generally lying by the nests. 

 The old birds were very solicitous about their young, hissing and stretch- 

 ing out their necks, and refusing to leave their nests until pushed off. 

 Yet, when I took one of the young away from the nest and placed it 

 close by on the rock, the mother seemed neither to recognize its con- 

 stant chirping nor to be aware that one of her brood was missing. Cer- 

 tainly she paid no attention to it. The odor in the neighborhood of the 

 nesting-places was most offensive. 



The young birds are infested with a tick of prodigious size, specimens 

 of which have been preserved. 



BUPHAGUS SKUA A:N^T ARCTIC US, [Less.) Coues. 

 Southern Skua. — " Sea-Hen." 



Lesiris catarractes, QuOY & Gaimard, Voy. Uran. Ois. pi. 38. 



Stercorarius catarractes, p., Schlegel, Mus. Pays-Bas, fasc. iv, 1863, Lari, j). 45. 



Lestris antarcticus, Lesson, Traite d'Ornith. 1831, p. 616. ^ 



Gould, B. Anst. vii, pi. 21. 



SCLATER, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1860, p. 390. 



Abbott, Ibis, 1861, p. 165. 



ScLAiER & Salvin, Ibis, 1869, 284. 



SCLATER & Salvin, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1871, 579. 



Philippi & Landbeck, Cat. Av. Chili, p. 47. 



HuTTON, Birds New Zeal. 1871, p. 39. 

 Slercorurius antarcticus, Bonaparte, Consp. Av. ii, 1856, p. 207. 



Pelzeln, Orn. Novara Raise, p. 150. n 



BiipJiagus antarcticus, Coues, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 1863, p. 127. 

 Buphagus slcua b. antarcticus, Coues, Birds Northwest, 1874, p. 605. 



