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Show 1876.] MR. H. SAUNDERS ON THE STERCORARIINJE. 321 the Azores, Madeira, or the Canaries; but future observations may probably show a somewhat more extended range than I have been able to trace. As a species it is nowhere abundant, and of late years its numbers in the Faroes and Shetland Islands have so seriously diminished as to render its speedy extermination there extremely probable. Although, like the rest of the family, it is essentially a " robber gull," yet it is by no means entirely parasitic ; for it feeds to a great extent upon flesh, and especially upon the Kittiwake gull, of whose feathers and bones all the castings were composed which Capt. Feilden examined at the Faroe Islands, whilst the stomachs of those he shot were full of flesh. This purely maritime Gull is the •only one which can be plundered with impunity that is found in any great numbers in the haunts of the Great Skua ; for the Herring-and Great Black-backed Gulls would not tamely yield their prey; and it is worthy of note that the winter range of S. catarrhactes extends DO further south than that of the Kittiwake. W e shall see that the heat of the tropics proves no barrier to other northern species which, from their superior swiftness of flight, require less specialized conditions for their existence. STERCORARIUS ANTARCTICUS. Lestris catarractes, Quoy and Gaimard, Voy. ' Uranie,' p. 137, Atlas, pl. 38 (1824) (Falkland Islands); Gould, B. of Aust. vii. pl. 21 (1848); Hutton, Ibis, 18/2, p. 248 (Chatham Islands). Lestris antarcticus, Lesson, Traite d'Orn. p. 616 (1831); Scl. and Salvin, P. Z.S. 1871, p. 579 (part). Meyalestris antarctica, Gould, P. Z. S. 1859, p. 98. Lestris antarctica, Sclater, P.Z.S. 1860, p. 390 ; Abbott, Ibis, 1861, p. 165 (Falkland Islands). Lestris fuscus, Ellman, Zoologist, 1861, p. 7472. Buphagus antarcticus, Coues, Proc. Phil. Ac. 1863, p. 127; B. N.W. A m . p. 604 (1874). Lestris catarrhactes, Hutton, Ibis, 1867, p. 185. Stercorarius antarcticus (et madagascarensis 1), Bp. Consp. Av. ii. p. 207 (1857) ; Von Pelzeln, Novara-Reise, Vogel, p. 150 (1865) (St. Paul's I.) ; Buller, B. New Zealand, p. 267 (1873). Stercorarius catarractes (b), Schlegel, Mus. P.-B. p. 47 (1865); Layard, B. S. Africa, p. 366 (1867) ; Sharpe, Zool. 'Erebus and Terror,' i. App. p. 32 (1875). Buphagus skua antarcticus, Coues, in Bull. U.S. N. M . no. 2 p. 9 (1875) (Kerguelen Island)*. Quite irrespective of the enormous gap which, so far as we know, at present separates the geographical range of S. catarrhactes from * Since writing the present article I have read the very interesting account of the habits of this species as observed at Kerguelen's Island by Dr. Kidder, Naturalist to the American Expedition to observe the Transit of Venus. It would appear that it avoids the water, and preys principally upon other birds; there are also other modifications of the usual habits of birds of this genus, to which space will not allow m e to allude. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1876, No. XXI. 21 |