66 EDWARD A. WILSON. 
In the South Victoria Land quadrant of the Antarctic area the occurrence of 
McCormick’s Skua (Megalestris maccormicki) is limited to the ice (sce fig. 41, p. 68). 
Nor does it in any other part of the Antarctic seem to wander into more temperate 
regions, its place being taken in the sub-Antarctic area by the more robust form 
Megalestris antarctica. Having accustomed ourselves to the appearance of the latter, 
which was with us day by day on our outward voyage for months, we had no difficulty 
in at once recognising the smaller and paler form of the ice pack as a distinct species. 
From January 5th, when we met with it, onwards throughout the summer months 
we had it always with us. Hardly a day passed in the summer but McCormick’s 
Skua was noted, though not always in excessive numbers, except when we neared 
an Adélie penguin rookery. Then the Skua would always become abundant, and the 
bloody remnants of penguin chickens would be sufficient testimony to the nature of 
its needs. 
In the “Antarctic Manual” Mr. Howard Saunders gives 78° S. lat. for the 
southernmost occurrence of McCormick’s Skua, and about 70° S. lat. as its limit to the 
north. These must now be extended, and in doing so this gull must be given the 
distinction of having been farther south than any other known bird. We met it first 
in January, in the ice pack of 68° 8. lat., but on our return north two years later we 
saw it for the last time at the Balleny Islands on March 1st, when we were in lat. 
67° 20" S. And for its southern range we saw two or three examples so far south as 
80° 20'S. An explanation of this occurrence will be found below, though it is right to 
say at once that in a sense we drew them to us from about 78° 8. lat. 
The variety of colouring in this skua was very noticeable at Cape Adare, where we 
landed for a few hours on January 9th. The colour of the head and neck and breast 
varies from a very light buff, or almost white, to a dark rich brown. Everywhere on 
the higher slopes the bird was nesting, and young of all stages as well as incubated 
egos were taken on that day. 
On January 15th we entered an ice-bound inlet, Lady Newnes Bay, and again met 
with McCormick’s Skua, in attendence this time on a colony of Weddell’s Seals and a 
company of moulting Emperor Penguins. The Skuas were not nesting here, for we 
were surrounded by ice cliffs and snow-covered rolling slopes. They were more than 
ever tame and fearless, and could be approached to within a yard or two as they 
fed on the blubber of the seals we had killed for food. 
Adrift here for ten hours with three companions on an ice-floe, I had time to 
watch some of the birds that kept us company during the hours of the night. The 
Skua we noticed slecping as it squatted on the ice-floes, from 2 a.m. till 7 in the 
morning, and a trait in the bird which we found to be very characteristic was the 
habit of settling, the one just ahead of its mate, both with outstretched wings and 
head well up, vociferating with loud and rapidly repeated cries before closing up the 
wings. Their habits are in every way like those of other Skuas, and having no 
other gulls to attack, as have their northern relatives, they content themselves by 
