SIBEKIAN POMARINE SKUA. 
Nest. “ None made, the eggs are placed on the moss ” (Middendorff). 
Eggs. “ Clutch two : the eggs have, on a yellowish oMve ground colour, a few spots of 
greyish brown, irregular and fairly pale, and other over-lying spots of a rather deep 
ohve-brown ; others have a pale greenish ground colour, varied by small pale ashy 
spots, and ohve-brown ones smaller than the former and a httle deeper in colour. 
The surface is fairly rough and a Httle glossy. Length 61-64 mm. : by 42-43.5 ” 
/ (Taczanbwski) (63-64 mm. by 46, Middendorff). 
Breeding-season. July (Middendorff). 
This would appear to be another erroneous entrant into the Australian List. 
Saunders, in the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, included an 
immature specimen from “Uape York, North Australia (J. T. Cockerell), ” 
and since then, as above, it has been generally included in the Australian 
avifauna; but it is now common knowledge that the “ Cockerell Australian ” 
collection contained many extralimital birds, and none are now admitted that 
are not otherwise confirmed. I have not traced any other occurrences of 
this Skua, and therefore it seems incorrect to accept this as an Australian 
visitor. 
Middendorff* writes that he found this bird breeding quite commonly on 
the Tundra round the Taimyr River. On the Boganida only a single specimen 
was shot during migration (May 31st). 
He first noticed it on June 6th ; on July 7th (in 74° N.) the first eggs 
(the clutch being two) were discovered, laid on the moss without any nest. 
Above 74J° N. he did not find this bird. On August 22nd a young bird was 
shot in the neighbourhood of the mouth of the Uda. He also found them 
breeding before they had attained the fully-adult plumage. Some of these 
were mated with those which had acquired the fully-adult stage. Their call 
resembled the alarm-note of some species of duck, when frightened away from 
its newly-hatched young. The eggs measured 63 to 64 mm. by 46. 
The male bird figured and described was collected in Alaska on May 
31st, 1898. 
* Sibirische Beise, Vol. II., p. 240, 1851. 
