S t e r c o r a r iu s pom a to rh in u s (Temminck**)!4
THE POMATORHINE SKUA.
Lestris pomctrw/m..
The first notice of this species as a Britisjp bird appears
to be in the sale Catalogue of Mr. BullppFs\.Qollectioii-,
i&l-9, where* at page 82, lot 61, is H an - undescribed
mucb allied to the^ Arctic,' but-greatly superior in #ize,
killed at Brighton ” ; and lot; 62, “ a second' example of the
same speeies, killed at Dover” ; and a third in-referred to as
* Lestris pomarinus, Temminck, Man. d’orn. p. 514 (i8i£$j$specific name
amended to pornatorhinus, from rr&pa (operculum) and mV (nasus), by Mr Selater
(Ibis, 1862, p. 297).
having been U killed near Liverpool,” and then ‘‘’in thevcol-
lection of Lord Stanley.” This species had already been
characterized by Temminck (Manuel- d’ornithologie, Ed. 1,
p. 514, 1815), and by Brisson some fifty-five years earlier.
Since its recognition as a visitor to our shores many more
examples, most of them young birds, have been obtained;
and this species is. now known ta. be of tolerably , regular
occurrence. It appears to. come down' the lines -of our
eastern and western coasts dm nutumn, some remaining all
the winter off our southern * shores.; and stragglers, have
been obtained far inland. At one time or another it has
been obtained off; nearly; every maritimo county of Scotland
and England, being; more abundant »on .the eastern than
on the western s id e b u t in the autumn of 1879 it appeared
in most unuiual numbers. The pages of The Zoologist ’
and other p.6riqdipalsrwere full of records of its occurrence;
and nowhere was it noticed in such profusion as off the coast
of Iforkshire, where it was literally in thousands, especially
on the 14th October, during a gale from N.NiE. On the
28th October, A880, during a severe storm, another flight,
small only by comparison, was noticed at Redcar.*
In.-Ireland comparatively few examples, principally birds
of the year, have;been obtained at irregular intervals on
various parts of the coast.; On the 22nd of October,; 1862,
Mr. R% Warren witnessed a migration , of this specie# in a
souths westerly direction, at the Estuary, of the M6y,liand
obtained two nearly adult specimens. The return migration
in spring appears tb.pass to the eastward.
In the Eaeroe Islands this Skua has occurred in considerable
numbers of late years, especially between August and
October, 1878, as well as in 1874 ; it! also visited that group
on the spring migration of 1877, the fine, adult' now figured
at the head of this article having been obtained bn the 20th
*§ee T. H. Nelson-(Zo.pl.vg8gO, pp. IS and f l l ) , for Yorkshire *, Ceeil Smith
(torn. c%t. jpl&h for Somersetshire; M. A. Mathew, and J. Ga^tcombe,(tom, cit,
ZT^fer Devon and Cornwall; H. Stevenson (Tr. Noi*wVSoc‘. T88o, ]5. 9’9)',
for-Norfolk; J.*J. Dalgleish (P&-N.' H. Soc. Glasgow, iv. pt: iiP%. 274), ff0r
Scotland ; not to mention others. '