84 DUBLIN NATUKAL HISTOET SOCIETT. 



Greenland by Captain Sabine, now Colonel Sabine, R. A. The whale fishers of 

 the Arctic Seas term them, with the Fulmar petrel, mallemucks, and, when a 

 series of visiting is carried on by the captains of the whale ships when together, 

 it is termed mallemauking. The manner in which the Irish specimens were de- 

 scribed as captured on hooks when hake fishing, puzzled me, as hake-fishing is 

 carried on with hand-lines, at a depth of 20 to 30 fathoms, and as these birds, 

 with long acuminate wings, are by no means adapted as divers, I wrote to my 

 friend, Mr, Chute, to obtain the information of their capture from our fishermen. 

 These shearwaters arrived in Dingle Bay about the end of September last year 

 (1854), and left early in November. They appeared in thousands in mild, foggy 

 weather, and during that time were exceedingly bold, approaching near to the 

 canoes engaged in hake-fishing, and seizing on all refuse thrown to them. They 

 were then easily captured with a. baited hook, the line and the bait always float- 

 ing; and any number could iiave been taken by the canoe men in that manner. 

 Their appearance always indicates a successful fishing season, particularly of 

 hake. They seemed in pursuit of sprats, and, except some odd birds, they had 

 not appeared in such numbers for seven years before. It was then in the month 

 of February, and at that time the glasson, or black pollock, fishing was most 

 successful, and the fishermen recollected a man to have caught, in one day, nine 

 score of pollock, and to have killed with a rod thrde score of the shearwaters. 

 Had I been aware of these facts last year.Icould have obtained any number of 

 the birds. The men who had been in American vessels had noticed these birds 

 all across the Atlantic. Like all the petrels, they are weak on the legs, but un- 

 tiring on the wing, treading the surface of the billows ; hence the French name 

 petit Pierre. Like the gannet, however, when settled on the water, they are un- 

 able to rise in flight, or do so with great difficulty, in calm weather. They have 

 not as yet been proved to breed on the Irish coast. To note the peculiar flight 

 of marine birds is a study of interest to the ornithologist. The greater shear- 

 water, from its long and pointed wings, speeds rapidly and steadily, skimming 

 the surface of the billows, while the storm petrel, swallow-like, darts into the 

 hollow, and over the crest of the wave : 



<* From the base of the wave to the billow's crown. 

 Amidst the flashing and feathery foam, 

 The stormy petrel finds a home ; 

 And only seeking her rocky lair 

 To warn her young, and teach them to spring 

 At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing." 



Captain Lyon, when in H. M. S. Griper, off Hatton's Headland, in Hudson's 

 Straits, and running in rather a heavy sea, saw large flocks of rotges, or rotche, 

 the little auk (Alca alle), fly directly against the steep sides of the wave and bury 

 themselves headlong in a moment, a most singular mode of diving which their 

 short wings assisted. 



I now turn to another point of interest, the description of a beautiful little 

 gull which has been intrusted to me by Mrs. Baker, of Grafton-street, and I 

 only wish that she had placed it in abler hands, as I cannot at present, without 

 the opportunity of comparison with an authenticated specimen, satisfy myself on 

 several points relative to its distinctive characters. The beautiful little gull be- 

 fore the meeting has been submitted to me as the Bonapartian gull {Lnrus Bonapar- 

 tii), and most kindly by Mrs. Baker, had been sent to be recorded in the Proceed- 

 ings of this Society. This small gull was shot at Skerries, Dublin, on the 18th Fe- 

 bruary last, by Captain Watkins, of the Northampton Regiment of Militia. Not 

 having examined the bird in its recent state, I had no opportunity of learning ac- 

 curately its measurement or weight. Mrs. Baker, who first drew attention to 

 the characters, was so satisfied of their identity with those recorded by Thomp- 

 son, that she, on very good grounds, assumed the present specimen to be the 

 Bonapartian gull he describes. The bird is immature, and as I do not place 

 much reliance on measurements in the young state, I have drawn out the follow- 



