CAHOWS AND LONGTAILS 



were a good and well relished Fowle, fat and full as 

 a partridge. In January wee had great store of their 

 Egges, which are great as an Hennes Egge, and so 

 fashioned and white shelled, and haue no difference 

 in yolke nor white from an Hennes Egge. There are 

 thousands of these birds, and two or three Hands 

 full of their Burrowes, whether at any time (in two 

 hours warning) wee could send our Cockboat, and 

 bringe home as many as would serue the whole Com- 

 pany: which birds for their blindnesse (for they 

 see weekly in the day) and for their cry and whoot- 

 ing, wee called Sea Owle: they will bite cruelly 

 with their crooked Bills." 



And now tonight in the late evening of June 7th, 

 1931, three hundred and twenty-one years later, I 

 sit, probably within sight of the place where William 

 wrote his excellent account, and there come to my 

 ears the plaintive calls of the last of the Cahows. 

 They may cling to their pitiful islet crevices for a 

 few more years, for collecting ornithologists are 

 rare in Bermuda, laws are strict, care-takers are 

 vigilant, and the difficulty and danger of making 

 a landing on these wave-beaten outer islands is 

 considerable. The Cahow will forever remain to 

 me as one of my successful pursuits of a sound in 

 the night. 



One day I chose to sit in the heart of a hollow 

 cauldron of great boulders at the foot of a western 

 cliff on Nonsuch. Purple, green — purple, green, 

 the ocean stretches out beyond the jagged barrier 

 in front, in successive streaks of violent color. The 



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