466 



Nilsson says that in the late autumn it occurs, though rarely, off the Bohuslan coast, and on 

 the Baltic off the outer fringe of islands which skirt the Swedish coast. It occurs but rarely in 

 Finland. Dr. Palmen says (Finl. Fogl. ii. p. 624) that in November 1848 a young male was 

 captured alive off Inga, in 1851 one was sent from Porkkala, and one was obtained in Thusby on 

 the 28th October 1861. One is said to be in a collection at Wasa, which was obtained in 

 Laihela, at the mouth of the Toby river ; and Von Nordmann speaks of three immature examples 

 from Nyland. It is found not uncommonly in Northern Bussia, and has been met with off 

 Archangel; but Messrs. Seebohm and Harvie-Brown did not observe it on the Petchora. 

 Mr. Sabanaeff informs me that he has on several occasions seen it in the summer season in the 

 Jaroslaf Government, and that it certainly breeds there. Bogdanoff states that one was killed 

 in the Sviaschsk district, in the Kazan Government. Either this or another Skua breeds, 

 Mr. Sabanaeff says, in the Kaslinsky Ural. 



According to Von Heuglin, the Pomatorhine Skua is by far the commonest species in 

 Novaya Zemlya and on Waigats, and is not unfrequently seen in flocks. It is stated to occur on 

 the coasts of Spitzbergen ; and, referring to this, Professor Newton writes (Ibis, 1865, p. 510) as 

 follows : — " As Dr. Malmgren remarks, Scoresby states that he observed two species of Skuas in 

 Spitsbergen ; but the name he uses for the less-common kind leaves it doubtful whether he 

 meant the Pomatorhine or the Long-tailed Skua. Boss speaks positively as to a single example 

 having been seen during Parry's voyage. This flew past the boats in lat. 82° N. As I have pre- 

 viously stated, some of our party in August saw a bird in Sassen Bay, which Mr. Wagstaffe, who 

 was present, described to me as having the form of tail which is so unmistakably characteristic 

 of the adult Stercorarius joomatorhinus ; and when between Bear Island and the Norwegian coast 

 we saw many examples of this species, he recognized them at once as being the same as the bird 

 he had previously told me of. A week or two later Dr. Malmgren, on his passage home, found 

 it equally plentiful in much the same latitude. No specimen, that I am aware of, however, has 

 yet been procured in Spitsbergen." 



In Germany it occurs not unfrequently as a straggler. Boeck has obtained it tolerably often ; 

 and it has occurred several times in Anhalt, once in Silesia, and once on the Moselle. Naumann 

 says that it has occasionally been met with in Switzerland and in many parts of Germany, as, for 

 instance, on the Bhine, Main, Elbe, Oder, and other rivers flowing northward ; so that examples 

 have been shot in Silesia, Saxony, Thiiringen, Mark, &c. ; and one was picked up dead in Anhalt, 

 half a German mile from his house, on the 13th November, 1837. It occurs now and again on 

 the coasts of Denmark in autumn and winter, and is also met with on the Dutch coast, where, 

 however, it is said to be rare. A few stragglers visit the shores of Belgium during the autumn 

 and winter storms; and, as above stated, it has been obtained on the Moselle. In October 1834 

 a large number, chiefly young birds, were cast on the coasts of France by a terrible storm. It 

 has occurred rarely in Provence ; and M. A. Lacroix says that he possesses a specimen given to 

 him in the flesh by a gunner at Toulouse on the 10th March 1854, and that M. J. Berdoulat has 

 in his collection an immature example caught by himself in a ditch near Muret after a heavy 

 storm. It is, he adds, to be met with during a large portion of the year on the coasts of the 

 department of the Pyrenees Orientales. I have no data respecting its occurrence in Portugal, 



