ORNITHOLOGY OF SECTION D, 1850. 
of a battue, which is supposed to act as a warning to the survivors 
for some years to come. It is said, that only a few individuals 
acquire this bad habit, but it then grows upon them, just as in the 
Scottish Highlands it is a single fox or eagle which gets into the 
way of carrying off lambs, but which evil disposed one gives a bad 
name to, and is the death of many of its innocent brethren. 
The Skua is one of the birds of which a certain number of heads 
is required to be given in by every inhabitant annually, by an old 
Jaw or custom, which reminds one of the mode in which Egbert en- 
deavoured to extirpate wolves in Britain. I do not know whether 
this is now strictly enforced, but I have seen the people collect 
heads, when they had an opportunity, either of this bird, or of the 
Rayen, or the Great Black-backed Gull, that is, when they were 
ready killed for them. I heard that several heads of the Hooded 
Crow, or Richardson’s Skua, might be substituted for one of the 
larger birds. Skua is the Faroese name of the bird. Richardson's 
Skua is called Shooi, which I was told has the same meaning as the 
Greek tagcos; Scouti allan is the somewhat similar name, but as in 
cases I have before mentioned, one with a different meaning used in 
the north of Britain. Scouti is said to have reference in Gaelic to 
its dirty mode of feeding, allan being a common name for several 
birds, as Allan Yasker is the Osprey or Fishing Allan. In Faroe, 
Richardson’s Skua is also, and more commonly, called Kjegya: 
sailors know it as the Boatswain. 
I have to record a very interesting fact with respect to the Fulmar, 
Procellaria glacialis, which has recently adopted some of the cliffs 
of the Faroe Islands as a summer station. In the time of Landt, 
who wrote in 1799, it was only known to those who fished far from 
the shore, but somewhere about the year 1839 it was observed by 
the rock climbers breeding, for the first time, near Quelboe in Sudero® 
and it has since much increased, and is scattered over several spots 
on the west cliffs of the islands of Skuoe and Great Dimon; i the 
latter place, the face where it builds is of great height and quite 
perpendicular, and the ledges are very small and bare. Eight 
ten of the nests that I examined consisted of a few small fragmen's 
of rock lining a slight depression. The featherless abdomen of the 
bird is hollowed into a perfect egg cup shape during incubation, © 
that the single large egg has the warmth applied to it in the most 
effectual manner, 
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