TUBINA RES. PROCELLARIIDIE.
P uffinus major, F. Faber*.
THE GREAT SHEARWATER.
Puffinus major.
P uffinus, Brissonf .—Bill rather longer than the head, slender, upper
mandible compressed and curved towards the point ; under mandible also slender
and decurved at the point. Nostrils tubular, opening by two separate orifices.
Legs of moderate length, tarsi compressed laterally ; toes three in front, rather
long, webbed throughout ; hind toe rudimentary. Wings long and pointed, the
first quill-feather slightly the longest. Tail graduated.
The Great Shearwater, represented by the lower figure
* Prodromus Island. Orn. p. 56 (1822). f Ornithologie, vi. p. 131 (1760).
in the above illustration, is an irregular autumnal visitor
to the British coasts, sometimes making its appearance in
considerable numbers off the shores of Cornwall and the
Scilly Islands. In the former Editions of this work it
was confounded with its somewhat smaller congener, the
Husky Shearwater, Puffinus griseus, the upper figure in the
plate; and this confusion having been general, and only
recently dispelled, it is still very difficult to assign to their
proper species many of the Shearwaters recorded from time
to time under the name of Puffinus major. This difficulty
is increased by the fact that the Dusky Shearwater, which is
always of a sooty hue, was supposed to be merely the immature
stage of P. major. The late Mr. D. W. Mitchell, then
of Penzance, who furnished the Author with the birds of
both species from which the figures here given were drawn,
supplied in addition the following account of the appearance
of this species on the coast of Cornwall:—“ In
November, 1839, a man brought me a Puffinus major alive,
which he said he had found asleep in his boat when he
went off to unmoor her, preparatory to a fishing expedition.
I suppose this happened about three in the afternoon, and
the bird had, probably, taken up his quarters at daylight.
The moorings at Newlyn are from one hundred to two
hundred yards from the shore. There were great numbers
of this species off Mount’s Bay at that time, and I soon
after had two more brought to me, which had been taken
by hooks. One of them is the light-coloured specimen in
your collection. The dark-coloured bird which you have
figured [P. griseus], was, I believe, obtained in a similar
manner about the same period in 1838. It is the only
example in that state which I met with during my residence
in Cornwall. The adult bird appears pretty regularly every
autumn, though not always in equal numbers. It has long
been in several collections at Plymouth, though it does not
appear to have been distinguished there from P. anglorum,
until Dr. Moore published his Catalogue of the Birds of
Devon. The latter is not a very common bird there, which
may have been the cause of such a mistake.”