2 2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE STORY OF THE CAHOW. 



THE MYSTERIOUS EXTINCT BIRD OF THE BERMUDAS. 

 By professor a. E. VERRILL, 



YALE UNIVERSITY. 



WHEN the Bermudas were first visited by Europeans, about three 

 hundred years ago, they had never been occupied by man. In 

 this respect they differed from most islands of a similar size and 

 blessed with a genial climate. 



The study of the character of their original fauna and flora and of 

 the changes subsequently wrought by man is, therefore, of peculiar 

 interest. Fortunately there were several educated and intelligent men 

 in the two parties who were wrecked upon the islands (1593 and 1609) 

 to whom we owe the first intelligent descriptions of the islands and 

 their products. These writers and others who settled there in 1612 to 

 1616, all agree in respect to the wonderful abundance of certain sea- 

 birds, whose eggs and fiesh contributed very largely to their food 

 supply. Indeed, it is probable that without this source of food those 

 shipwrecked parties would have died of starvation. Even later, in 1615, 

 during a famine that occurred among the settlers, the birds furnished 

 for a time a large part of their food. One of these abundant and useful 

 birds they called the 'egg-bird,' because its spotted eggs were laid in 

 vast numbers, openly, in May, on some of the smaller sandy islands 

 'reserved for their use.' This was undoubtedly a tern, probably the 

 common tern, or the roseate tern, both of which were still breeding in 

 small numbers on Gurnet Rock in 1850. 



Perhaps both these species of terns were included under the general 

 name of 'egg-birds,' for two or more species often breed together and 

 liave similar eggs. The noddy tern may also have been one of them, for 

 it is mentioned under this name by one of the early writers. 



But the terns were so continually and persistently robbed and killed 

 that they were soon driven from their breeding grounds or exterminated. 

 They are now known only as migrants. As breeding birds they have 

 long been extinct at the Bermudas, the last records of their breeding 

 being about fifty years ago. Among the formerly abundant birds 

 there is one, however, of far greater interest; originally called the 

 'cahow' or 'cohowe,' with various other spellings, from its singular note. 

 Tliis bird is unknown to science and is, so far as known, totally extinct. 



