LARIDJE. 389 



mainder straw-yellow. Gape, and inside mouth and throat, bright reddish 

 orange. Tongue pale orange-yellow. Eyelids black. Irides dark hazel." 

 This must be considered as an addition to the three adult specimens 

 known to Mr. Howard Saunders mentioned above. Mr. Mansel-Pleydell 

 had no knowledge of any Dorsetshire example of Sabine's Gull. 



This beautiful Gull was first made known through a pair killed by 

 Captain Sabine on Spitzbergen, and to obtain its eggs the nesting-stations 

 must be sought in the bleak regions of the Pole, either in Northern Siberia 

 or in Arctic North America. 



Its fork tail was considered by earlier ornithologists to show a link 

 between the Terns and Gulls, but in the arrangement we are following 

 the position assigned to this species, at the end instead of at the head of 

 the Gulls, would seem to show that more recent systematists have 

 abandoned this idea. 



Subfamily S TE R C RARIl N^. 

 THE SKUAS, OR PARASITIC GULLS. 



There are four species of these singular raptorial Gulls 

 which pass the summer in the north nesting upon the 

 fells, and in the autumn come down our coasts on their 

 migration to the south. Two of them — the Common Skua, 

 or " Bonxie," as it is called in the Shetland Islands, and 

 Richardson's Skua — nest on the islands to the north and 

 north-west of Scotland ; while the other two — the Pomato- 

 rhine and Buffon's Skua — nest in the northern countries of 

 Europe, and are only more or less accidental visitors to 

 our southern coasts in the autumn. But sometimes after 

 heavy October gales Skuas are blown into the English and 

 Bristol Channels in considerable numbers, and one reads 

 of many being shot at the different watering-places. The 

 Skuas are great bullies to the other Gulls, chasing them 

 and robbing them of their fish, as we have witnessed in 

 October in Torbay, where occasionally the Pomatorhine 

 and Kichardson's Skuas occur abundantly. They are also 

 carnivorous, feeding on cannon, birds, and small mammals. 

 Many names have been bestowed upon them : that of 



