100 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



BIEDS. 



Great Skua on the Yorkshire Coast. — With reference to Mr. Harper's 

 comments (p. 21) on the ignorance of Yorkshire fishermen as to the identity 

 of the Great Skua, allow me to say that, although this may apply to the 

 Scarborough fishermen, their Redcar brethren are not equally ignorant. 

 The Great Skua is distinctly known here as the " Morrel Hen," Richardson's 

 and Buffon's Skuas are called " Allans," and the Pomatorhine Skua is the 

 " big Allan." Whenever any of the men have reported having seen " Morrel 

 Hens " on the fishing-grounds, I have always questioned them particularly 

 as to the bird they mean, and on more than one occasion have had ocular 

 proof that they were correct. In October, 1886, Mr. Emerson and I were 

 out in a boat with W. Dobson, an old Redcar "standard" who has often 

 told me he has seen "Morrel Hens" in the offing. We had shot several 

 S. crepidatus and seen two or three S.pomatorhinus near enough to recognise 

 them, when a Skua passing within shot, was brought down by Mr. Emerson ; 

 I was sitting in the bow near old Dobson, who directly he saw the bird, 

 which was some thirty or forty yards away, said, " That's a Morrel Hen," 

 and on picking it up I found it was a fine Great Skua. We showed it to 

 several other fisbermen, who all declared it was what they called a " Morrel 

 Hen." Since writing the above I have shown Mr. Harper's note to Dobson 's 

 son, who confirms what I have written, and tells me he saw a Great Skua 

 last autumn, and described it as being as big as an Iceland Gull. — T. H. 

 Nelson (Redcar). 



The Extinction of Pallas's Cormorant. — It seems rather strange 

 that, while skins and eggs of the Great Auk are so highly valued, the 

 public rarely hear of Pallas's Cormorant, the extinction of which in the 

 North Pacific corresponds to that of the Great Auk in the North Atlantic. 

 Only four specimens of Pallas's Cormorant are known to exist in museums ; 

 no one possesses its eggs ; and no bones were found or preserved until 

 Mr. Leonhard Stejneger, of the Smithsonian Institution, was so fortunate 

 some years ago as to rescue a few of them. Yet this bird was the largest 

 and handsomest of its tribe. So says Mr. Stejneger in an interesting 

 paper,— just issued by the Smithsonian Institution,— in which he records 

 how the bones referred to were found by him in 1882 near the north- 

 western extremity of Behring Island. In an appendix to this paper Mr. 

 Stejneger's "find " is fully and exactly described by Mr. Frederic A. Lucas. 



Bee-eater in Devon, — Perhaps it might interest some of your readers 

 to know that twice during the summer of last year I saw a Bee-eater, 

 Merops apiaster, in the neighbourhood of Exeter, namely, on July 17th and 

 Au£ 13th. The first time I saw it, it was only for a moment, the chief 

 thing which struck me about it being the rusty or chestnut-brown about 





