BIRDS 439 



first [1 young specimen] I have met with or heard of in this 

 quarter.' The late Mr. Grayson of Whitehaven assured me 

 that he mounted a local specimen of the Great Skua killed in 

 1865. The only recent appearance of this Skua on any part of 

 our N.W. coast was ascertained by William Nicol, who has ex- 

 ceptional opportunities for observing such birds, since his entire 

 time is spent, summer and winter, in fishing and shooting in the 

 waters of the Solway Firth. He wrote to me on November 7, 

 1889: 'I saw on Friday, Nov. 1st, a Common Skua, a fine- 

 looking bird, but could not get near it.' He told me a few days 

 later that he saw this bird off the Grune Point, and that it was 

 harassing some large gulls. He also remarked that he had a 

 good view of the white alar bar. Mr. Nicol is well acquainted 

 with the other species of Skuas, and has himself shot both the 

 Arctic and Buffon's Skua. 



POMATORHINE SKUA. 



Stercorarius pomatorhinus (Temm. ). 



We should naturally suppose that this Skua would pass down 

 the Irish Channel in small numbers every autumn, but in point 

 of fact experience shows that it is a rare bird on the N.W. 

 coast. Dr. Gough has a note of a Pomatorhine Skua killed near 

 Tunstal, on October 17, 1870. Mr. Murray possesses the oldest 

 local bird that I have seen, but it has not quite reached perfect 

 maturity. It was shot on the coast near Carnforth. A few 

 birds of this species visited us after some heavy weather in the 

 autumn of 1879. Mr. A. Smith obtained a specimen on Rock- 

 liffe marsh. Dr. Parker secured a second near Whitehaven. A 

 third bird (in the brown plumage of the first year) was shot at 

 the south end of Walney Island. George Holmes forwarded a 

 Pomatorhine Skua which he shot when the bird was flying along 

 the beach near Bowness on the 24th of October 1884. This is 

 the only specimen that I have seen in the flesh in Lakeland, but 

 Mr. R. Mann recollects that on one occasion numbers of this 

 Skua visited the Solway Firth. 



