LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 113 



months ago I oanie across an old book called A Complete System of Geography, 

 printed imder the name of Herman Moll, etc., September 21, 1747, and the 

 greater part of it professedly taken from a much older work called Britannick 

 in America. After describing Bermuda and its animal, insect, and vegetable 

 productions, it gives the following account of the birds that were found on the 

 islands at that time (say, between 200 and 300 years ago) : "There was a great 

 variety of fowl, both wild and tame, such as hawks of all sorts, storks, herons, 

 bitterns, ospreys, cormorants, baldcoots, moor-hens, swans, teal, snipes, ducks, 

 widgeons, sparrows, woodpeckers, and a vast multitude and variety of the 

 smaller kinds, besides owls, bats, and other nocturnal birds. Here was likewise 

 formerly a kind of waterfowl, peculiar to those islands, which used to come to 

 Rind and hatch its young in holes and burrows of the rocks, like rabbits. They 

 were in great plenty, and were called cowkoes. They were easily caught, and 

 good to eat, the size of a sea-mew. Our English made such havoc among them 

 they are become scarce. Here is likewise found the tropic bird and the 

 " pemlico." The last is seldom seen in the daytime, and, when it is, it is looked 

 upon as the unwelcome harbinger of a storm." 



Now, my belief is that the cowkoes of old are lost and gone long ago, and 

 that the cahow of the present day is neither more nor less than the old and 

 ancient pemlico. For, in the first place, the cahow of this day is not nearly so 

 big as the sea-mew ; secondly, the pemlico has never been lost sight of by the 

 Bermudians, the name having been handed down from father to son from the 

 earliest times to the present day ; and, thirdly, the habits of the old pemlico 

 and the cahow of to-day correspond to a T — that is, they are seldom seen 

 flying in the daytime, only at night. 



Mr. Bartram goes on to say that on making inquiries of the people of 

 Tucker's Town, St. David's, and Bailey's Bay, they knew nothing of the 

 cahow, but all could tell him of the pemlico. From the above interesting 

 account and from strong evidence adduced by Mr. Bartram, I am inclined 

 (with all due deference to Mr. Hurdis) to share his opinion as to the proper 

 local name for P. obsctirtis being pemblyco or pemlico, and further to believe 

 that the cowkoes or cahows of old were of a larger si>ecies, probably manx 

 shearwaters (P. anglorum). This, after all, is pure conjecture and of doubt- 

 ful interest to any but Bermudians themselves ; still I venture to mention the 

 facts in the hope that some more conclusive historical evidence may be forth- 

 coming. 



On the strength of evidence recently brought to light, it now 

 seems to be well established that the name " pimlico " or " pemblyco " 

 was applied to a shearwater, probably Puffinus pufjinus hermudae^ 

 Nichols and Mowbray, a local race of manx shearwater, and that 

 the name " cahow " or " cowhow " Avas applied to a petrel, probably 

 Pterodroma caJiow (Nichols and Mowbray). 



Mr. Thomas S. Bradlee (1906) published the following note: 



On February 22, 1906, Mr. Louis L. Mowbray took a Peale's petrel {Aes- 

 trelata gularis) in a hole of the rock overlooking the sea and washed by the 

 spray. The bird was taken after a southwest gale. Peale's petrel is not 

 included in the A. O. U. Check-List, but I am sure of the identification of 

 the bird, and am glad to be able to put on record the first instance of Peale's 

 petrel being taken in the Northern Hemisphere. The bird is now in the col- 

 lection of the Bermuda Natural History Society. 



