284 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Family PUFFINID^^. Shearwaters. 



Long-winged petrels; bill with united tubular nostrils. 



Manx Shearwater. FnffiJius pnffinus (Briinn.), 



The range of the Manx Shearwater (Plate 124), so far as is 

 known with certainty, is restricted. It nests in Iceland and the 

 Faeroes, and is thought to breed in Madeira. In the Scilly Isles 

 it is abundant, and also in sev^eral islands off the coasts of 

 Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, including the Orkneys and Shet- 

 lands. Mr. C. Oldham and I discovered a small colony on the 

 mainland in North Wales, and there are a few similar colonies 

 on Irish headlands. In the Mediterranean the closely allied 

 Levantine Shearwater, P. p. yelkoiiaii (Acerbi), occurs, and 

 numbers wander into the Atlantic in autumn ; it is by no means 

 uncommon off" our south and east coasts between August and 

 February. British birds, and probably passage migrants from 

 further north, are common off our shores in autumn, and large 

 numbers are picked up inland. Southward migration is a well- 

 marked movement. 



The Manx Shearwater, no longer an inhabitant of the island 

 from which it gets its name, is nevertheless a common bird in 

 the Irish Sea ; indeed, it is well distributed and often common 

 in most of our coastal waters in summer, even at a distance 

 from any known breeding ground. Its black upper and white 

 under parts are a little like those of an auk, but its long, slender 

 bill, with a strong hooked tip, and its narrow pointed wings are 

 those of a petrel. Even on the water it looks more slender, has 

 finer lines that the stout Guillemot or Puffin, and on the wing it 

 is a very different bird as it skims or shears the waves. It 

 glides upward, cants over at right angles, swoops with one wing 

 just missing a crest, then skims the surface, rising and falling 

 with the waves, then up again, now right wing up, now left. 



