830 SHEA R WA TER 



forwards — the deep yellow of the bare skin about its face, and its 

 beryl-coloured eyes, is one of the most beautiful of sea-birds. 



SHEARWATER, the name of a bird first published in 

 Willughby's Ornifhologia (p. 252), as made known to him by Sir 

 T. Browne, who sent a picture of it with an account that is given 

 more fully in Ray's translation of that work (p. 334), stating that 

 it is "a Sea-fowl, which fishermen observe to resort to their 

 Vessels in some numbers, swimming ^ swiftly to and fro, backward, 

 forward, and about them, and doth as it were radere aquam, shear 

 the water, from whence perhaps it had its name." ^ Ray's mis- 

 taking young birds of this kind obtained in the Isle of Man for 

 the young of the Coulterneb, now usually called Puffin, has already 

 been mentioned (p. 752); and not only has his name Puffinus 

 anglorum hence become attached to this species, commonly described 

 in English books as the Manx Pufiin or Manx Shearwater, but the 

 barbarous and misapplied word Puffinus has come into regular use 

 as the generic term for all birds thereto allied, forming a well- 

 marked group of the Family Procellariidse (Petrel, p. 708), dis- 

 tinguished chiefly by their elongated bill, and numbering some 

 twenty species, if not more — the discrimination of which, owing 

 partly to the general similarity of some of them, and partly to the 

 change of plumage which others through age are believed to 

 undergo, has taxed in no common degree the ingenuity of those 

 ornithologists who have ventured on the difficult task of determin- 

 ing their characters.^ Shearwaters are found in nearly all the seas 

 and oceans of the world,* generally within no great distance from 

 the land, though rarely resorting thereto, except in the breeding- 

 season. But they also penetrate to waters which may be termed 

 inland, as the Bosphorus, where they have long attracted attention 



■^ By mistake, no doubt, for flying or "hovering," the latter being the 

 word used by Browne in his Accoitnt of Birds found in Norfolk (Mus. Brit. 

 MS. Sloane, 1830, foL 5. 22 and 31), written in or about 1662. Edwards 

 {Gleanings, iii. p. 315) speaks of comparing his own drawing "with Brown's 

 old draught of it, still preserved in the British Museum," and thus identifies 

 thelatter's "Shearwater" with the " Puffin of the Isle of Man." 



^ Lira, Lyra or Lyrie (all three forms being found) appears to be the most 

 common local name for this bird in Orkney and Shetland ; but Scraber and 

 Scraib are also used in the Hebrides. These are from the Scandinavian Skrapc 

 or Skrofa, and considering Prof. Skeat's remarks {Etym. Diet. p. 546) as to the 

 alliance between the words shear and scrape it may be that Browne's hesitation 

 as to the derivation of " Shearwater " had more ground than at first appears. 



^ Mr. Salvin's catalogue of the specimens of Procellariidae, in the British 

 Museum, which is understood to be in a forward condition, will doubtless throw 

 much light on this difficult question. 



■* The chief exception would seem to be the Bay of Bengal and thence 

 throughout the western part of the Malay Archipelago, where, though they 

 may occur, they are certainly uncommon. 



