H2 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



Ivory Gull. If the ice depart ; so do the birds — on its return the birds come 

 also back. " I expect," he says, " the explanation will be found in the fact that 

 this truly Arctic species is greatly dependent upon seals' ' leavings ' of different 

 sorts." 



Family— STERCORARIID/E. 



Great Skua. 



Megalestris catarr hades, LlNN. 



THE Great Skua, Skua-Gull, or Bonxie, as it is variously named, though truly 

 a British breeding bird, is not a familiar one in the southern parts of the 

 kingdom, except in very rough weather. It nests now only in the islands of Unst 

 and Foula, in the Shetlands — where it is protected. During winter and autumn, a 

 few individuals straggle southward, along the coasts of both Bngland and Scotland. 

 In Ireland it has been taken on a few occasions ; but it has never bred there. 

 Mr. Eagle Clarke's account of the ruthless destruction of the bird, and the 

 wholesale stealing of its eggs, shows that, unless some measures of protection are 

 at once afforded to the Great Skua, this splendid member of our avifauna must 

 soon be exterminated from Europe. 



Its nests have been found in Iceland and the Fseroe Islands ; but none have 

 yet been taken in North America, nor in Greenland, which it visits, though in 

 the former, not improbably, breeding stations may yet be found. In winter it 

 wanders to North Africa, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, and on the western, 

 as far as the shores of Massachusetts. Its large, size — it is as big as a Herring 

 Gull — and dark colour, render it too conspicuous not to be distinguished at once 

 from any other shore bird. 



The female is in colour of plumage exactly similar to the male, but she varies 



