254 
LARINiE. CATARACTES. 
thanks in return. The petty squabbles of u namers” are about 
as amusingly disgusting as the selfish greed of some colleo 
tors of plants, who rush to the first tuft of u a rare species’* 
they see, and sweep it off “ in toto,” to the unheeded mor- 
tification of their unsuspecting companions. This species 
has once occurred in Ireland. 
Larus Rossii, Richardson, Parry’s Second Voyage, App. 
359 ; Fauna Bor. Amer. ii. 427. — Larus rosea, Jardine and 
Selby, Ornith. Illustr. vol. i. pi. 14. 
GENUS CLIV. CATARACTES. PIRATE-BIRD. 
The birds of which this genus is composed are very 
nearly allied to the Gulls in their conformation, as well 
as in many of their habits ; but differ in having a more 
bold and predatory character, and in living for the most 
part, like gentlemen, at the expense of the “ working classes,” 
the Gulls and Terns, which they force to pay tithes or tri- 
bute, causing them to disgorge part of their food, which 
they immediately transfer to their own gullets. Linnaeus 
considered them as part of his comprehensive genus Larus ; 
Illiger and Temminck refer them to a separate genus, which 
they name Lestris ; and others have elevated one species, 
the largest, to the peerage, under the title of Cataractes 
Skua, leaving the rest in the genus Lestris, as common rob- 
bers. I am not sure that the larger bird is altogether en- 
titled to this distinction. 
Cataractes, then, so named by some of the older as well 
as modern authors, has the body of a compact and robust 
form ; the neck of moderate length ; the head large, broadly 
ovate, anteriorly narrowed. Bill shorter than the head, 
nearly as broad as high at the base, compressed toward the 
end, straight, with the tip decurved ; upper mandible cerate, 
with the ridge broad and rounded, having a shallow groove 
on each side, the nasal space covered by a thin plate ; nos- 
trils linear- oblong, much wider anteriorly, pervious, sinus 
very short, broad, and feathered, edges sharp and inflected, 
tip very strong, laterally convex, much decurved, thin-edged, 
rather obtuse ; lower mandible with the intercrural space 
long and narrow, the branches broad and erect, the angle 
little prominent, the edges sharp and inflected, the tip com- 
