THE SKUAS OF KILLALA BAY, CO. MAYO. 179 



Buffon's Skua (Lestris parasiticus) is of very rare occur- 

 rence on this part of the Irish coast, and has only on two 

 occasions come under my notice. First, on October 24th, 

 1862, I was on the shore near Scurmore, looking out for any 

 rare birds that might have been driven in by the gale on the 

 two previous days, when a small Skua flew past, which I fired 

 at and wounded, but it escaped on the sand hills. On the 

 following day when walking over the Enniscrone sands on 

 the bay side of the sand hills, I picked up a small Skua lying 

 dead, near high-water mark, and fancied it was the bird I had 

 fired at the day before. After I got home, and when skinning 

 it, I found it was wounded with No. 6. shot, and as that was 

 the kind of shot I used, I felt sure it was the bird I had fired at 

 on the Scurmore shore. 



The second specimen was given me on October, 18th, 1867, 

 by the late Mr. N. Handy, of Ballintubber, near Killala, who 

 told me that he met the bird when out Grouse-shooting, and 

 shot it as it rose from the carcase of a dead horse upon which 

 it had been feeding. This, like the first specimen, was in the 

 immature plumage, but, being kept too long before I got it, 

 was unfit for preservation. 



The only instance that I am aware of, of this Skua being 

 seen on its spring migration in Ireland, is from a letter of 

 Lieutenant Crane, of the 67th Regiment, read at a meeting 

 of the late Dublin Natural History Society, on February 7th, 

 1862, of which I give an extract : — 



" The specimens of Buffon's Skua were shot by me on 

 May 16th, 1860, on the Shannon, about four miles south of 

 Athlone. I was out with two other brother officers, shooting 

 Landrails, which are very plentiful on that part of the river. 

 The day was very stormy and cold for the season, the wind 

 from the north-west. I was sitting in a boat at a place called 

 Long Island, when a flock of about twenty Skuas passed over. 

 I saw at once that they were not common birds ; long tail- 

 feathers marked them at once ; but, as I was sitting in the 

 bow, the flock had nearly passed over before I saw them, but 

 I succeeded in killing one. Some time after another flock of 

 about the same number passed, but I could not get a shot ; 

 but a third flock came over, out of which I killed one bird 



