GREAT SHEARWATER 



215 



valuable as they are to the Westman islanders, and, in former days at 

 any rate, constituted a large portion of their food-supply. 



Here it may be mentioned that an individual of the widely dis- 

 tributed southern bird known as the Cape petrel or " Cape pigeon " 

 {Dnption capensis) was reported to have been killed near Dublin in 

 1 88 1. Since, however, no mention of this species is made in the 

 latest work on Irish birds, it is to be presumed that there is some error 

 in the statement, or that the bird was not a wild one. 



Great Shearwater ^^ '' "" '^'''"^^' ^"' ^'^-''^^ ^^'^^ ^^'^ scientific name 

 (Pufflnus gravis), ^"ffi'"^^ ^"^'^^ applied by Lmn.xnis to one of the shear- 

 waters instead of to the true puffin, more especially 

 as this term has been raised to the rank of a genus by later naturalists, 

 in consequence of which all the shearwaters now figure as Puffinus, 



HE ROWLAND WARD STUDIOS 



GREAT SHKAKVVATliK. 



while the true puffins, as we have seen, are designated Fi-atcrcnla. 

 But this is not all, for when the shearwaters are made the type of a 

 family they take the name of Puffinid;t, or puffin-tribe, to the exclusion 

 of the typical puffin. Absurdity in nomenclature can scarcely go much 

 further. The anomaly arose, however, from the circumstance that the 

 Manx shearwater, the type of the whole group, was called " puffin " 

 by the English naturalist Willughby, who lived before the time of 

 Linnaeus ; and according to modern rules of nomenclature appears to 

 be unavoidable. 



