THE SKUA. 



Belfast Bay, in the viciuity of which place they were observed 

 until the SrJ of October. 



Mr. Robert Davis, jun., of Clonmel, in passing by sea troni 

 Dangarvan to Stradbally, on the 15th of August 18,3b observe, 

 a great dark-coloured skua, which he believed o be of this 

 species, "give chase to a large g,dl and '^^-vf.'"'-^'^" 

 what had been a copious meal of sprats. The brrds (lew « bn 

 a tew yards of the boat, and just as they passed the sm-rendci 

 took place. The skua immediately turned round, sett ed hunselt 

 on the water, and picked up the sprats at his leism-e, l«;""g *'"= 

 vanquished to fish for himself again." I>i the winter of 18*»-6. 

 one of these skuas (the species of which has been ^1" »"'^^ J;? ; 

 description sent to mc) was shot near the island of Whiddj, Banti) 

 Bay ;— Lord Bantry has it preserved.* 



ilr. G. Matthews, when on his sporting tour in Norway dumg 

 the summer and autumn of 18-13, met with the skua on an island 

 at the entrance otTrondjiem (Drontheim) Fiord, » t^^^J^'^?""'^; 

 It attacked both his companions and himself by striking them on 

 the head, but they made the bird pay with its Ufc for such temerity : 

 it was s;pposed that they had approached its nest too neari^ 

 Thev did not see the J. caUrrkacfa north of Trondjiein In the 

 summer and autumn of 1849, tlris was found by Capt. May o be 

 the scarcest of the four species of skua along the coast of Norway 

 but he shot a few of them. They were easy of access ;-when 

 the party landed on the islands they occasionally flew very near 



*^7r Fleming, in the ' Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' vol. i. 

 p 99 (1819), gives a very interesting account of tins bird at its 

 Leding-haunts in the " Zetland Islands,"-the on y place within 

 L British seas where it nidifies-as Mr. Drosier >kewise does n 

 -Loudon's Magariue of Natural History' for 1828 vo in 

 p 321) ■■ the chase of the eagle by skuas, a. witnessed by the 

 latter gentleman, is most graphically narrated. „,„„„,,„ 



The M™ cataniaetes is the only one of * - ^™P » 

 species of its genus not included among the birds of the United 



* Mr. G. Jackson. 



