6*78 A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 



gested, by considerable imagination and some fond recollections of a 

 favorite locality in England.* 



However, it is peculiar that the same name is not only used for 

 the same bird, to this day, by the fishermen in Bermuda, but it is 

 also still used for the same bird by the natives in the Bahamas, 

 where it breeds. f 



Governor Butler's account, 1019, is as follows: "Another smale 

 birde ther is, the which, by some ale-hanters of London sent over 

 hether, hath bin termed the pimplicoe, for so they imagine (and a 

 little resemblance putts them in mind of a place so dearely beloved), 

 her note articulates ; and this also, for the most part, is a bird of the 

 night, and whensoever she sings is too true a prophett of black and 

 foule weather.! 



The superstition that this bird is a sign of bad weather still pre- 

 vails among the fishermen and sailors. 



This bird was found by Mr. Bartram breeding as late as about 

 1874, in the holes and crevices of the rocks on several of the small, 

 barren islands about Castle Harbor.§ Capt. Reid sa} r s that he found 

 two nests with young birds in 1874, and kept one alive for some 

 time. It always lays its eggs in crevices of the rocks, without any 

 definite nest. 



Mr. Wedderburn, Capt. Drummond, and Mr. Ord visited Gurnet 

 Head Rock, May 20th, 1850, and found two nests with a young one 

 in each, and also secured one egg at that date, but did not see the 



* According to Governor Lefroy, the original Pimlico was a well-known ale 

 house and place of resort near Hogsden. It was referred to in " The Alchemist." 

 act V, sc. i., 1610, and in other works of that period, e. g. : 



" Sir Lionel. ' I have sent my daughter this morning as far 



As Pimlico, to fetch a draught of Derby ale, that it 

 May fetch a colour in her cheeks.' Tu Quoque, 1614." 



The name was subsequently adopted for a similar place near Chelsea, and so 

 eventually extended to the whole of that district. 



f In Australia this name is given by the natives to the Friar Bird, on account 

 of its peculiar notes, although there is no other resemblance between that bird 

 and the shearwater. 



JThe accounts of this and the other birds given by Capt. John Smith were 

 evidently borrowed, with small verbal changes that did not improve them, 

 directly from Butler's Historye, but he seems to credit them to Norwood. 

 He added some observations taken from Strachy and Hughes, and made some 

 mistakes in his compilations, as when he said the eggs of the Cahow were 

 "speckled, the others [egg-birds] white," just reversing the facts. 



§ Mr. Bartram also found a nest of a larger shearwater (P. Anglorum .'). April. 

 1864, and May 1, 1877, on one of these islets. 



