Buffon’s Skua in Western Vermont. — I have lately examined a specimen 
of Stercorarius buff'trni^v/hich .was shot at West Castleton, Vermont, in 
September, 1877, by Mr. George B Dunbar. I have been unable to ascer¬ 
tain the exact date of its capture, but it was little later than the 7th of the 
month, doubtless within two or three days of that date. The bird, which 
is in immature plumage, was in company with another apparently of the 
same species and age, as no difference could be detected between them. It 
was shot on Screwdriver Pond, a pond of about a mile in length, half a 
mile from Lake Bomaseen, which is a body of water some nine miles 
long, situated about ten miles east of the southern end of Lake Champlain. 
The occurrence so far inland of a species that usually is found only off 
our coast, seems to demand some explanation, but that which always first 
suggests itself in the case of sea-birds taken in the interior, viz., that the 
bird has been driven from its accustomed haunts by a storm, seems in this 
case to be insufficient. Although the U. S. Signal Service recorded “heavy 
northeast gales” as prevailing along the New England coast during the 
7th, 8th, and 9th of the month, yet the chances are extremely small that 
two individuvals of the same species should have been blown by the same 
gales to the same pond at a distance of a hundred and thirty miles from 
the coast. I should prefer to suppose that in their youth and inexperience 
they had wandered in company from the Gulf of St. Lawrence up the St. 
Lawrence River, and then, guided only by an instinct that impelled them 
southward, they had followed up the Champlain Valley to the point where 
they were found — Charles F. Batchelder, Cambridge , Mass. 
Auk, I, Jan,, 1884. JJ. 
