other's fault." This little trait, which would seem to raise them nearer humanity, I particularly noted. The mode of attack, when thus aerialy delivered, is the same in all these birds, and, as it seems to me, curiously ineffective. The beak, a powerful weapon, is not employed, nor is a blow—which, if it were, might be of real force—delivered with one of the wings. Instead, the webbed feet, which would seem to be weak in comparison, and have no talons or grasping power, are made use of in the way I have already described in the case of the two gulls fighting, when, after the tussle on the ground, the one was swooped at by the other.
The following account of the attack of the smaller or Arctic skua, will apply almost equally to the great one. "The bird comes swooping down in a slanting direction, with great speed and impetus, and as it passes over one's head, makes a slight drop with the feet hanging down, so that they administer a flick just on the top of it, as it shoots by. Having made its demonstration, it shoots on and upwards, and turning in a wide sweep, again comes rushing down to repeat it, and so forwards and backwards for perhaps some half-a-dozen times, after which the intervals will become longer, the circling sweeps which fill them up wider and more numerous, till the attacks cease, and the bird flies away." (The great skua, however, will attack almost indefinitely.) "The force of the downward rush is in all cases very great, and the 'swirr' which accompanies it quite startling, suggesting a larger bird, or something of a more portentous nature altogether. In striking, the bird shoots the feet forward as they dangle, so that they
