LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 115 



of these feathers, agreeing in color with tlie description of tlie eaiiy writer? 

 that the cahou was russet and white, and the skull differing from those of 

 the shearwater, convinced me that the tind was a good one and without question 

 the long-looked for cahou." 



When my above-mentioned work on the cahow appears there will ))e found 

 in it a full discussion of these " russet feathers " and of the hazy idea the 

 early writers had of that color. Then, too, the fossil bird bones from Bermuda 

 turned over to me for description go to prove that the extinct cahow was a petrel 

 and not a shearwater at all. 



Doctor Shiifeldt has also very kindly sent me the original manu- 

 script of his exhaustive memoir, as yet unpublished, entitled : " Com- 

 parative Study of Some Subfossil Remains of Birds from Bermuda, 

 including the CahoAV," Avhich he read long ago at a regular meeting 

 of the New York Zoological Society. This excellent paper is far too 

 technical and goes into the matter too much in detail to warrant 

 quoting from it extensively, but the following short quotations will 

 cover the m.ost important points in his conclusions regarding the 

 status of the species. He says : 



It has long been a question among ornithologists as to whether the famous 

 "cahow" was a shearwater {Puffinns ohscurtis?) or a petrel {.TJstrelata). 

 In so far as my observation carries me, there is at least one character In the 

 skeleton by means of which we can with certainty distinguish from' each 

 other these two different kinds of birds. This character is seen in the form 

 of the cneviial process of the tibiotnrsus. In the genus Fuffinus — and possibly 

 in some of its near allies — the cnemial process of the tibiotarsus is conspic- 

 uously elongate, as we see it in the grebes and loons, while in the petrels ic 

 is notably shorter, with rounded superior margin. Judging from this character 

 alone there is no question but that the " cahoAv " of the Bermuda Islands was 

 an JEstrelata and not a Pnffinus. This fact is sustained by other osteological 

 as well as external characters found in the representatives of the two genera 

 in question. For example, both the horny sheaths to the mandible, as well 

 as those parts in the dried skulls when deprived of the sheaths, are positively 

 diagnostic witli respect to these two groups of tubinarine birds. 



Prof. Addison E. Verrill (1902) has given us the following inter- 

 esting account of the early histor}^ of the cahow^ : 



The most interesting as well as most important native bird, when the islands 

 were first settled, was called the cahow, from its note. It bred in almost incredi- 

 ble numbers on some of the smaller islands near St. Georges and Castle Harbor, 

 especially on Coopers Island. It was nocturnal in its habits and was readily 

 called by making loud vocal sounds, and then easily captured by hand, at night. 

 Its flesh was described as of good flavor and its eggs were highly prized 

 as food. As it came to land and bred in the early part of the winter, when no 

 other birds or eggs were available, it was quickly exterminated for food by 

 the reckless colonists. 



It laid a single large white egg, described as like a hen's egg in size, color, 

 and flavor. The nest, according to the earliest writers, was a burrow in the 

 sand like a coney's, and not in crevices of the rocks, like that of the shear- 

 waters, with which many writers have tried to identify it. Governor Butler, 

 in his " Historye of the Bermudaes," alone stated that its eggs and young were 

 found in crevices of the ledges, but he evidently did not have the advantage 



