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Order LAEIFORMES. 



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[Family STEKCOKABIIDiE. 



MEGALESTHJS ANTARCTICA. 



(SOUTHERN SKUA.) 



Stercorarius antarcticus (Less.), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 63. 



On June 18th, when about 100 miles off the Australian coast, the weather being fine, a single 

 G-annet passed us, and two hours later, a whole flock of them. After nightfall, the steamer being 

 at rest waiting for the ' Perthshire,' which we had in tow, to refit her apparatus, a Southern Skua 

 came up to the ship with its peculiar soft winnowy flight, passed once or twice round us, as if 

 taking stock of us, the bird being very distinctly visible in the starlight, and then settled down 

 daintily in the water to pick up some offal we had thrown overboard. This bird is, therefore, 

 somewhat nocturnal in its habits. 



I kept a tame one in my garden at Wellington for a considerable time, and he was very 

 intolerant of his domain. He bullied a Sea-gull (Lams dominie emus) confined with him most 

 unmercifully, chasing him off the ground at every opportunity and fairly danced with excitement 

 on these occasions, lifting his wings and springing up from the ground. I once introduced a 

 Ked-billed Gull, (Larus scopulinus) which at once made for the garden fountain and seemed quite 

 at home. Half an hour later I returned and found that the Skua had resented the intrusion by 

 killing the bird outright. On leaving Wellington, I presented this autocrat of the garden to Mr. 

 Walter Eothschild, and shipped it to England. It arrived in safety, and no doubt did its best to 

 dominate Tring Park, but I did not learn much of its subsequent history, although I saw the bird 

 there, in perfect health, two years later. 



I have, as already recorded, been much struck with the readiness with which this bird adapts 

 itself to a strictly terrestrial existence. Writing of the species, however, on Kerguelen Island, 

 Dr. Kidder says : 



As a general rule its habits are terrestrial ; and on the few occasions when, probably after poor success in 

 hunting, I have seen it alight in the water, it has held its wings up perpendicularly, like a butterfly, as if 

 afraid of wetting them. . . There being no land-birds on Kerguelen Island besides Ghionis, the office and 

 most of the habits of a Buzzard-hawk have been assumed by this great Skua. It was at first taken for a 

 Hawk by all of us, its manner of flight, watchfulness of the ground over which it flew, and habit of perching 

 on spots commanding a wide view, all suggesting this impression. It was, indeed, difficult to believe the 

 evidence of my own senses when I found a web-footed bird avoiding the water, and preying solely, so far as my 

 observation extended, upon other birds. 



I find the following entry relating to this bird in my diary for 1893 : 



Off the New Zealand coast.— On the 4th March a Skua (Megalestris antarctica) made two cruises round 

 the ship and then disappeared, his plump, rounded body and heavy flight rendering him very readily distin- 

 guishable on the wing. He came near enough to the ship to make the white spot at the base of the primaries 

 distinctly visible. 



And again in my diary for 1894 : 



February 22nd.— Wind has veered round to S.S.W., and there is a heavy swell. Unusually cold for this 

 latitude and this season of the year : water 45° Fahr., and the atmosphere, in the shade, 48°. On Saturday 

 the temperature of the water was 70° Fahr. The reading in the shade yesterday was 51°, and the day before 

 61°. But the inequality of temperature of the atmosphere in these latitudes is sometimes very remarkable. 



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