404 
LARIDtE. 
pause before we can distinguish the immature L. Rickardsonii 
from L. longicaudatus, so much do individuals of each species 
differ in size. 
Skuas have become very scarce in parts of Belfast Bay, where 
in my boyhood they almost daily came under my notice in autumn, 
and not unfrequently two or three in a day — in winter, I had not 
the opportunity of observing them. I allude to the Kinnegar 
or Holy wood rabbit-warren, where in the fine breezy days of 
September and October they thus appeared, and at the same 
time terns, which are now about equally rare. Without the pre- 
sence of terns or gulls, which the skuas make their caterers, they 
are not to be seen, unless accidentally. Although we cannot ad- 
mire their predatory character, they are very interesting birds, 
from the great power and rapidity of flight which they display. 
As they come sweeping down upon the large gulls, it is extra- 
ordinary to observe these drop their prey, which apparently within 
the next second of time is appropriated by the robber skuas. These 
birds present a singular subject for contemplation in being lorn 
rollers , endowed by nature with every faculty that will enable 
them to bear off and live upon booty seized from or dropped 
through fear by their most nearly allied species — the gulls and 
terns.* 
I was told at Horn Head in 1832 of some species appearing on 
the coast regularly in autumn and remaining during that season 
and winter. On the 1st of August, 1850, a gentleman visiting 
that locality saw several of these birds in pursuit of herring-gulls 
as they flew out to sea. An observant shooter has seen a skua 
(probably from his description L. pomarinus or I. Rickardsonii) 
in Belfast Bay in the autumn of 1842. Two w r ere noticed there 
on the 31st of August, 1843, and one on the 12th of September, 
1844 \ — a herring-gull was chasing it at the time. At the entrance 
of Dundrum Bay, county Down, on the 23rd of August, 1836, 
* I give the following as an unusual occurrence, from the journal of the late 
John Templeton, Esq . : — “ Aug. 3, 1812. Mr. M'Skimmin, of Carrickfergus, 
mentioned to me that a black-toed gull ( larus crepidatus) had been caught on 
a baited hook near that place. The fishermen remarked to him that they seldom 
appear in the hay, and that when seen, they are very shy, and keep at a distance from 
their boats and lines.” 
