154 MEDITERRANEAN NOTES 



" March ^th. Went by train to Torre del Annun- 

 ziata, whither I had sent the yacht a few days before for 

 good air and water, as the men were suffering from want 

 of these requisites at Naples. Sailed thence March 7th, 

 with a fair breeze, which left us becalmed just off Capri. 

 Crept along with occasional light breezes till the afternoon 

 of March 9th, some miles south of Stromboli, when a 

 very strong head wind met us blowing directly out of 

 the Straits of Messina, with occasional fierce squalls. As 

 wind and current were against us, we did not attempt 

 to push through the Straits, but brought up in a little 

 bay to the north of the Faro. Fierce squalls through 

 the night. Came into Messina early on morning of 

 March loth, where we remained till i6th. Very cold, wet, 

 snowy weather, with occasional furious squalls of wind. 



" At Torre del Annunziata, M shot a good speci- 

 men of Larus melanocephalus, getting the black head, and I 

 a specimen of L. ridibundus in the same condition. We saw 

 many ducks, and several flights of peewits going northwards. 



M reported swallows, but I saw none. I saw several 



skylarks at sea off Stromboli, and some cranes passed us 

 at night. Many shearwaters * and a few gulls seen at sea. 



* The Shearwaters {Puffinus) are sea-fowl belonging to the Petrel 

 family {Procellariidie). They lay their eggs in the end of underground 

 burrows or of deep splits in the rock. The true Great Shearwater 

 (/*. major) probably nests far south of the Equator ; the " big " 

 shearwaters, to which Lord Lilford refers later as nesting, being 

 P. kuh/i, and his "smaller" shearwaters probably the Manx Shear- 

 water {P. angiorum), or P. yelkouan. 



