bichardson’s skua. 
179 
birds, and their eggs must be added to the bill of 
fare. 
The breeding-places of this species are principally situated 
in the northern regions ; on some unfrequented heath, at a 
distance from the sea, parties of thirty or forty are found to 
congregate in a certain space or neighbourhood, but the nests 
are not placed very near together ; they are composed of 
grass and lichens. Snipes and oyster-catchers are the only 
birds that breed in the immediate vicinity of the Richard¬ 
son’s Skua ; of the snipes they take no notice, and with the 
oyster-catcher they do not meddle, as the blows of its strong 
beak are sufficient to ensure respect. 
The eggs are two in number, as represented in our 
Plate. 
The length of Richardson’s Skua is, as before enume¬ 
rated, twenty inches from the tip of the beak to the 
extremity of the longest tail-feather ; the wing thirteen inches 
nine lines ; the tarsus one inch nine lines ; the middle toe 
the same length. 
The adult male has the face, top of the head and nape, 
back, scapulars, tail, and rump, sooty brown; the chin, lower 
part of the face, and all the under parts white; the sides of 
the neck and upper part of the breast are more or less tinged 
with ochrous yellow; the lower part of the breast, sides of 
the belly, vent, and under tail-coverts are dashed with ash 
grey, and slightly tinged with yellow and sooty brown; the 
beak is bluish on the cere, and black at the tip and under 
mandible; the legs are black ; the eyes are brown. 
The immature plumage is entirely sooty brown, paler on 
the under parts, and having a cinereous bloom over all parts, 
extending even over the legs and feet. 
As this species is, like the other skuas, several years be¬ 
fore it arrives at maturity in its plumage, much diversity of 
