skimming round the corner of a rock close to the water.
Perhaps they will have a great gathering, such as I encountered
one evening in ‘ Smith’s Sound.’ There was a
congregation of at least three hundred, in the middle of
the tide-way, washing, dipping, preening feathers, and
stretching wings, evidently just awake, and making ready
for the night’s diversion. As I wanted a few specimens
more than I had dug out of the burrows, I ran my boat
well up to them, and when they rose got as many as I
wished, besides a few unfortunate cripples who were only
winged, and proved, by their agility in swimming and
diving, a good deal too much for my boatmen. I think a
good dog would have no chance with them. They allowed
me to come quite close. They sit low in the water; they
make no noise when disturbed, though in their holes they
are eloquent enough, the Scillonian synonyms of Grew and
Cockathodon being derived from the guttural melodies they
pour forth as the spade approaches the end in which the egg
is deposited. I once caught a pair in one burrow who were
crooning a duet of this kind before we commenced operations.
I presume they were in the honey-moon, as there
was no egg. It is frequently deposited on the fine sandy
soil without any preparation, though generally there is a
slight accumulation of fern leaves and old stems. They
produce but one egg, which, when fresh laid, is of the most
dazzling whiteness, and of peculiarly beautiful texture; it
measures two inches five lines in length, by one inch nine
lines in breadth, and is very large for the size of the bird.
When you kill a Shearwater by pressure, as I generally did
for the sake of her skin, she vomits a most abominable oil,
in which float so many particles of brilliant green that it
appears of that colour, though the stain it leaves is yellow.
The quantity got rid of in this way is sometimes enormous.
“ When the young bird leaves the egg it is covered with
greyish-black down, except a stripe along the centre of the
breast and belly, which is white. I found a chick very
lively in an egg which had been taken from the burrow
two days previously to my examining it. My notice was
m ,, i
attracted by hearing a little voice in the basket as I sat
preparing a skin about midnight. I thought of Asmodeus
in the bottle immediately.”
The single white egg is deposited in a burrow or the
crevice of a rock on a few blades of dried grass ; it is smooth
in texture, although without much gloss ; there is comparatively
little of the musky odour about it so obtrusive in the
eggs of the Fulmar; and the yolk is a very pale yellow;
average measurements 2‘4 by 1'65 in. Incubation commences
early in May, but, according to Saxby, if the first
egg is taken the same bird will lay again some weeks later.
The nestling remains in its home until long after it is fully
fledged, and becomes enormously fat. The stomachs of the
adults examined by Saxby contained the jaws of a small
species of cuttle-fish, together with a small quantity of comminuted
sea-weed, and some vegetable fibre. In the intervals
of its rapid and somewhat angular flight this species has
frequently been observed, contrary to a popular idea, to settle
on the water, where, however, it seldom remains for long.
In skimming the surface of the water it frequently ploughs
it up with its breast. After severe weather, storm-driven
individuals are not unfrequently picked up in our inland
counties.
The Manx Shearwater breeds in considerable numbers in
the Fasroes; and is found on the coast of Norway and
throughout the North Sea; it is believed to have some
breeding-places on the islands off the coast of Brittany, and
it undoubtedly nests about the Canaries, Madeira, the
Desertas, and the Azores. It is stated by Reinhardt to
have occurred in Greenland; and Mr. G. A. Boardman
informed Mr. Dresser that it was common on the fishing-
grounds off the Bay of Fundy. Capt. Savile G. Beid, R.E.,
states (Zool. 1877, p. 491) that there is a specimen in Mr.
Bartram’s collection at Bermuda which was captured whilst
sitting on its solitary egg, some years ago. In the Mediterranean
there occurs a resident form of doubtful specific
distinctness, characterized, as a rule, by a larger amount of
brown striations on the under tail-coverts. This is the