398 LARID^. 



time during the present voyage, specimens of the arctic gull 

 [Lestris Richardsonii) pursuing, as is their wont, the other kinds 

 of gull — forcing them to disgorge their food. Observed a feature 

 of this mancEuvre which we had never before noticed. When 

 they descend upon what may be called the victim gull, either 

 actually striking it on the back, or with an angry menace seeming 

 to do so, they frequently tumble themselves head over heels 

 beyond and beneath it, so as to hang, as it were, for a few seconds 

 in the air, back downwards, but with ready beak, intent to seize 

 the savoury haK-digested morsel, disgorged in terror by their 

 timorous cousins.''^ Mr. Hewitson, in his work on the ' Eggs of 

 British Birds,' gives an interesting account of this species in its 

 breeding-haunts in the Orkney and Shetland Islands and on the 

 coast of Norway. 



At a meeting of the Dublin Nat. Hist. Soc. in January 1842, 

 the Eev. H. H. Dombrain made the following communication : — 

 " I may mention a circumstance that occurred to my father [Sir 

 James Dombrain] while grouse- shooting in the Isle of Rum, 

 Scotland, in 1837. The dogs had come to a set at a pack of 

 grouse, and while the sportsmen were walking up to them, they 

 observed two birds hovering over their heads, which my father, 

 from having observed eagles, &c., do the same in Donegal, took 

 to be hawks. The grouse rose and a brace were shot ; the birds 

 made a stoop at the wounded grouse when falling, but failed. 

 The dogs having left the game, my father was anxious to try 

 whether he could shoot the *■ hawks ' also, and, having loaded, 

 directed the man to tln^ow up one of the dead grouse into the 

 air. The birds made a stoop at it, and he shot them both, when, 

 to his surprise, they seemed to be sea-gulls ; — he brought them 

 home to me, and they proved to be a male and female skua {Les- 

 tris Eichardsonii) •" — I have seen both these birds in Mr. Dom- 

 brain's possession. The measurements of the male (adult) are — 



in. lin. 



Length (total) 21 



„ exclusive of long tail-feathers . . . . , 17 fi 

 „ of bill above in a straight line .... 12 



,, of biU from rictus „ . . . . . 1 11 



