MANX SHEARWATER. 285 



There is little wing-beat, but an easy loitering glide ; it does 

 not hurry. Often, however, strings of Manx Shearwaters pass, 

 bent on business ; these birds fly straighter and with greater 

 speed, but their longer wings are never rapidly moved like 

 those of auks ; the birds swing along and glide with easy grace, 

 undulating just above the waves. 



Off the North Wales coast these steadier flights are in the 

 morning and evening, the birds passing to and from feeding 

 grounds. These movements are puzzling ; they are diurnal 

 summer flights which have no connection with the larger south- 

 ward autumnal migration. I have often observed them myself, 

 but my main source of information is Mr. R. W. Jones, who 

 first called my attention to their regularity in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Great Orme. From May to August the birds pass 

 almost every evening in a series of flocks or strings, travelling 

 west from the direction of Liverpool Bay towards and beyond 

 the north coast of Anglesey ; Mr. Jones counted 144 in half an 

 hour, and at Point Lynas I saw 270 pass between 6 and 6.30 p.m. 

 I have occasionally seen parties going east in the early after- 

 noon. In Liverpool Bay and the Irish Sea between Lancashire 

 and the Isle of Man, Manx Shearwaters are common in the day- 

 time all through the summer. I have seen the bird at this 

 season in the North Sea and Scottish waters ; the statement 

 that it is nocturnal, in the breeding season and after, is certainly 

 not entirely correct. Dr. Eagle Clarke's experience with the 

 Storm-Petrel, which he found absent during the day when young 

 were hatched, does not apply to this species, for I found birds 

 brooding young in the daytime, but at three different colonies 

 I saw no birds about by day. Probably some, perhaps one of 

 each pair, goes off to a distance to feed by day, and at night 

 injects the young with the oily half-digested matter upon which 

 it certainly thrives. Those who know the coast and the position 

 of the colonies will understand that the evening westward flight 

 is from, not to the feeding grounds. 



