Buffon's Skua. I2 5 



Lapland, one nest with two eggs, placed near the centre of a large isolated mass 

 of peat, standing about three feet above the level of the surrounding bog, and 

 therefore dry. The nest itself was a very slight depression, lined with a few bits 

 of lichen. 



From the eggs emerge chicks covered with greyish-brown down, darker above, 

 paler below. When fledged the young birds are sooty-brown above ; the mantle, the 

 flanks, the upper and under tail-coverts tipped with buff; under surface greyish- 

 white, barred with ash-brown. Older, but immature, birds differ from adults 

 in the under parts and upper tail-coverts being barred with varying degrees of 

 ash-brown, and very little yellow on the sides of the head (Saunders). TJie winter 

 plumage of this Skua is similar to that of the Pomatorhine Skua. 



Buffon's Skua feeds on crow-berries (Empetrum nigrum), crustaceans, fishes, 

 insects, worms, but chiefly on lemmings. It will attack and also devour wounded 

 birds, and the eggs and young of any species it comes upon. Like its cousin, last 

 described, it keeps up the reputation of the family for piracy committed against 

 Kittiwakes and other Gulls, which are too weak to withstand its bullying. In 

 Greenland, Mr. Trevor-Battye found the birds " astonishingly bold, hanging round 

 the camp for chance morsels. We caught one or two in muffled toothed traps. 

 One of these settled down at once and fed readily. When I was alone in Dick- 

 son's Bay, two pairs nesting there were astonishingly valiant. Kach time I passed 

 their nesting ground they set at me, not stooping from a height as a Gull does, 

 but each in turn coming straight at one's face with a long wing-stroke, and a 

 rapid level flight, so that it demanded some little resolution not to duck one's 

 head. But when about a yard from my face they always ' threw up ' and passed 

 over my head with a wind, and so close that I touched them on several occasions 

 with my hand. Bach bird kept crying incessantly until the moment came for the 

 straight fly-in, and then it stopped and came on silently." 



Captain Fielden, who was naturalist to the Arctic expedition of 1875-76, says 

 that the present was the only species of Skua Gull that he met with in Smith 

 Sound. " It arrived in the neighbourhood of our winter quarters," he records, 

 " during the first week of June, and in considerable numbers. After that date it 

 was to be seen during every hour of the day quartering the fells and searching 

 for lemmings. It lays its two eggs in a small hollow on the ground, and defends 

 its nest with the utmost bravery. On several occasions I have struck the old 

 birds with my gun barrel when warding off their attacks as I plundered their 

 nests. This species can easily be distinguished from its near ally 5. parasiticus, 

 at every age, by the mottled colour of the tarsus and webs of the feet, which in 

 5. parasiticus are black." 



Vol. VI. U 



