398 
LABIM. 
time during the present voyage, specimens of the arctic guli 
( lestris Richardsonii ) pursuing, as is their wont, the other kinds 
of gull — forcing them to disgorge their food. Observed a feature 
of this manoeuvre which we had never before noticed. When 
they descend upon what may be called the victim gull, either 
actually striking it on the back, or with an angry menace seeming 
to do so, they frequently tumble themselves head over heels 
beyond and beneath it, so as to hang, as it were, for a few seconds 
in the air, back downwards, but with ready beak, intent to seize 
the savoury half-digested morsel, disgorged in terror by their 
timorous cousins.” Mr. Hewitson, in his work on the f Eggs of 
British Birds/ gives an interesting account of this species in its 
breeding-haunts in the Orkney and Shetland Islands and on the 
coast of Norway. 
At a meeting of the Dublin Nat. Hist. Soc. in January 1842, 
the Rev. H. H. Dombrain made the following communication : — 
“ I may mention a circumstance that occurred to my father [Sir 
James Dombrain] while grouse- shooting in the Isle of Rum, 
Scotland, in 1837. The dogs had come to a set at a pack of 
grouse, and while the sportsmen were walking up to them, they 
observed two birds hovering over their heads, which my father, 
from having observed eagles, &c., do the same in Donegal, took 
to be hawks. The grouse rose and a brace were shot ; the birds 
made a stoop at the wounded grouse when falling, but failed. 
The dogs having left the game, my father was anxious to try 
whether he could shoot the f hawks 9 also, and, having loaded, 
directed the man to throw up one of the dead grouse into the 
air. The birds made a stoop at it, and he shot them both, when, 
to his surprise, they seemed to be sea-gulls ; — he brought them 
home to me, and they proved to be a male and female skua {Les- 
tris Richardsonii) •” — I have seen both these birds in Mr. Dom- 
brain's possession. The measurements of the male (adult) are — 
Length (total) 
exclusive of long tail-feathers 
of bill above in a straight line 
of bill from rictus „ 
21 
17 
m. 
1 2 
1 11 
