94 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



mention, that the loose and slaty rock, so easily detached, and which renders the 

 ascent difficult and dangerous, belongs to the Silurian strata, and possesses great 

 interest in a palceontological character this, with the fossiliferous slates in the 

 neighbourhood of Ventry, Dunquin, and Ferriter's Cove, will afford investigation of 

 interest to the geologist ; and, while we have such men here as Professor Jukes, 

 we may expect records of views similar to that which brought about such important 

 changes in the classification of formations, as the establishment of the " Devonian 

 system," by Professors Sedgwick and Murcbison, who, in April, 1839, clearly 

 maintained their opinions with reference to this geological epoch, and which the 

 previous suggestions of Messrs. Lonsdale and Sowerby, whose intimate knowledge 

 of the organic remains of the carboniferous and silurian systems materially in- 

 fluenced them to adopt. The North Blasket and Western Island, as well as Inish- 

 nabro, are famous for the multitude of rabbits, and are the breeding haunts of the 

 storm petrel (Thalassidroma pelagica), termed in Irish Gourdal. I have passed 

 close under both Skellig Islands, but have been unable to land. The Lesser Skellig 

 is the breeding place of the gannet, and, I am certain, of several of the shearwaters 

 and petrels. 



Having drawn this outline, I shall turn to another portion of my paper, the 

 occurrence of the Greater Shearwater (Puffinus major), and to which I have been 

 led by the rather dubious accounts of the distinctive characters, and of the mode of 

 capture of the birds taken on the Irish coast. In the " Annals of Natural History 7 * 

 for 1842, page 433, Mr. Thompson records two specimens of Puffinus major, on the 

 authority of Mr. Robert Davis, jun., of Clonmel, as obtained off the coast of 

 Waterford, and, having subsequently the opportunity of examining one of the birds, 

 he remarked that the Irish specimens were identical with those described by Tem- 

 minck as frequenting the more northern seas of Europe, and with the Puffinus 

 cinereus figured by Selby. Doctor Ball, who observed the Greater Shearwater off 

 Bundoran, states that they appeared to be much more dusky than the Manx petrel, 

 and these views are continued by Mr. Thompson in his work on the birds of Ireland, 

 also giving in addition the remarks of Mr. Robert Warren, jun., who says " In 

 August, 1849, when hake-fishing off Cork Harbour, he saw two of the Greater 

 Shearwaters, which were easily distinguished from the P. anglorum (of which 

 numbers were seen the same day) by their larger size and darker colour." About 

 two years ago a very fine specimen of the Greater Shearwater was obtained by 

 Richard Chute, Esq., from Dingle Bay, and, as I saw it in the recent state, I 

 noticed that it had all the characteristics of the bird obtained in 1832 by Mr. 

 Strickland from the Tees mouth, and described by him as P. fuliginosus. Mr. 

 Strickland, however, subsequently obtained another bird of lighter markings and 

 colour, apparently in the adult plumage, and in relation to which the inquiries 

 would lead us to be satisfied that P. fuliginosus of Strickland, and the P. cinereus 

 of Selby, were but the young of P. major, and not identical with the true P. 

 cinereus. 



You will observe that the birds now before you, and which were captured in 

 Dingle Bay, have very different characters from those hitherto described as oc- 

 curring on the Irish coasts. They have been beautifully and accurately preserved 

 by Mrs. Baker, of Graf ton -street, whose merits I shall have occasion hereafter 

 to mention. Superior in size, they are also very different from those of the Manx 

 Shearwater, and with the plumage of the dusky petrel, lighter in all the upper 

 surface, the head, cheeks, and back of an ash gray, with the edges of the feathers, 

 on their external margins, beautifully marked, of a lighter colour, waves of light 

 gray on the sides, while the throat, and all the under surface, is pure white, thus 

 being lighter in all its shades, and not having the dusky and dark colour of the 

 backs and wings of the P. anglorum and P. obscurus. These birds are evidently the 

 true P. major in the adult plumage ; and although it has been recently noticed as 

 having been taken off Youghal, on gentlemen's lines, these are the first descriptive 

 characters of the adult bird captured on the Irish coast, as Mr. Thompson's de- 

 scriptions only refer to the figure and characters of the bird given by Selby, and 

 which is identical with the specimen in Mr. Chute's collection, being an immature 

 bird, or the young of the year. The true P. cinereus would strike me as being 

 altogether distinct, of a larger size, and of an universally dark colour. Darwin 



