THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
“ On the Macquarie Islands the Skuas patrolled the Penguin’s rookeries 
with great persistence, and no doubt took a fair share of the eggs and 
young.”* 
Buller, writing of a specimen of this bird in captivity, says : “ He is almost 
omnivorous, but gives preference to fish and meat. On a dead bird being 
offered him, he runs off with it in his beak, then, holding it down with his 
feet, plucks the feathers off and devours the flesh. On throwing him a blight- 
bird {Zosterops lateralis) he bolted it, feathers and all. His capacity for 
swallowing fish is something astonishing, his crop becoming greatly distended. 
He has the power of regurgitating his food, and will sometimes reproduce from 
his throat a bone of marvellous size, the wonder being how he ever managed 
to swallow it. Although not habitually a nocturnal bird, he sometimes gets 
very excited after dark, hurrying about the garden with outstretched wings 
and uttering a peculiar cry, as if being suffocated. At other times he emits 
at intervals a note like the crowing of a pheasant. 
“ The flight of this bird is heavy, and performed by slow, regular flap- 
pings of the wings, with the shoulders much arched. It possesses, however, 
the faculty of turning quickly in the air, as I observed when the guUs were 
in pursuit. On the wing the white mark across the primaries is very con- 
spicuous, but it is not sufficiently apparent to distinguish the bird when the 
body is at rest.”f 
“ The impudence and aggressiveness of the sea-hawk surpasses anything 
I have seen among wild birds, and it is this bird more than any other which 
I believe to be responsible for the destruction of other birds on the islands. 
We found it to be common at the Snares, Aucklands and Campbell Islands, 
while I had good opportunities of examining it at Antipodes Island during 
the breeding season. 
“ Everywhere on the higher lands the ground was strewn with skeletons 
of petrels. Some bones were bleached by long exposure, others were recently 
picked, while several were found from which the feathers had not yet been 
stripped. All of these were without doubt the work of skua gulls, many of 
which we surprised at their meals. 
“ The entrances to many of the burrows of the petrels were enlarged, and 
it seems probable that the skuas actually enter the holes and drag the birds 
out . . . These parasites are ever on the watch : they chase other birds for 
the sake of their dinners, which the unfortunate victims disgorge ; they hover 
among the penguins on the chance of picking up a young or disabled bird, and 
they dance close attendance on the sitting albatroses. If one of these birds 
* Wilson, National Antarct. Exp., Vol. II., p. 64, 1907. 
f Buller, Trans. New Zeal. Inst., Vol. XI., pp. 374-5, 1879. 
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