eichaedson's skua in its nesting haunts. 173 



overhead to repeat the same manoeuvres on a tussock beyond 

 us. She kept complete silence, and both when running and 

 flying kept her bill slightly open. Considerable time elapsed 

 before her mate — also a black bird — appeared, and he too 

 showed his concern by running about with upraised and 

 quivering wings. The nest consisted of a few scraps of heather 

 placed on a slight mound, and measured six inches across, and 

 the two eggs appeared to be deeply incubated. 



In subsequent cases, where nests still contained eggs, one 

 or other of the birds kept up a constant tyik, tyik, tyik, tyecho, 

 tyecho, during our presence ; and once a Skua beat about help- 

 lessly, uttering the piteous moan of a young bird, behaving in 

 a ridiculous attitude for a bird whose flight at a Gull is so 

 often the object of admiration. 



When the young are hatched, and during their period of 

 running about the moss, the adult birds become, if possible, 

 more demonstrative, and beat and tumble in the most con- 

 spicuous manner near the intruder, often accompanying the 

 performance with a low, piteous moan ; and should there be a 

 loch on the moss, one of the old birds will sometimes beat along 

 through the shallows, or rest on the surface and strike the 

 water with its wings the while. The young birds may at first 

 be noisy, but they soon learn to be quiet, and to skulk in the 

 presence of an intruder. They snap at a finger presented to 

 them, and when tormented run off unsteadily across the 

 heather, using their wings to aid them. 



A Skua-haunted moss is the scene of perpetual warfare. 

 The Skuas pay no heed to the smaller tenants, such as the 

 Golden Plover and the Dunlin, but relentlessly harass some of 

 the larger species that may be breeding on the same ground 

 as themselves, and generally warn chance visitors to their 

 quarters to avoid their haunts in future. In the case of birds 

 of allied genera, as Lesser Blackbacks, or of birds with instincts 

 somewhat akin to their own, as Hooded Crows, the enmity 

 may be regarded as merely the result of food quarrels ; but in 

 the case of species that can in no way be considered rivals, it 

 must be laid down to the sheer tyranny of the Skua. We had 

 been tramping about a moss one day in quest of young Skuas, 

 whilst the old bird — one only being present — was watching us 



