such a splendid description in "The Betrothed," that delightful work which an obtuse critic and publisher (l'un vaut bien l'autre very often) almost bullied its author into discontinuing. The victory is by no means always to the robber bird, and I believe that if a tern only persevere long enough it has nothing to fear, for, as in the case of the black-headed gull and the peewit, with much threatening, there is never, or, to be on the safe side, very rarely, an actual assault. It almost seems as if this logical sequence of what has gone before had dropped into desuetude, and that the skua, from having long been accustomed to succeed by the show of violence only, had become incapable of proceeding beyond the show. Why, if this were not the case, should he always leave a bird that holds out beyond a certain time? It is not that he is outstripped in the chase, for the skua's activity and powers of flight have always seemed to me to be sufficient to overtake any bird of his own size, however swift, with whom he has piratical relations. Of his own size, or something approaching to it, for I have seen him altogether baffled by the smaller turns and evasions of such a comparatively feeble flyer as the rock-pipit. But this was out of the ordinary way of his profession. The rock-pipit carried nothing, and, even if he had done, it would have been too insignificant for the skua's attention. Either amusement or murder—or the amusement of murder, which is felt by birds as well as men—must have been the object here, nor does this contravene
