The Birds of Pembrokeshire. III 
son believes that a Petrel seen by him skimming over a pool in 
the Burrows in his parish of Castle Martin one day in the summer 
was a Fork-tailed Petrel. Mr. Dix states that it has been taken 
several times after severe storms in Milford Haven, and saw one 
in Tracy's shop in Pembroke that had been picked up near that 
town, 
MANX SHEARWATER, Pufinus Anglorum. — Local name 
“Cockle.” Resident. The Manx Shearwater is, without doubt, 
the most interesting of our Pembrokeshire birds, from the fact 
that Skomer Island is the largest breeding-station, and may be 
considered the metropolis, of the species in the British Isles. 
The numbers there are almost incredible. And yet any visitor 
to Skomer in the day time, who left the island before night, 
would probably fail to see a solitary Shearwater, and if he was 
ignorant of the indications of their presence, might depart quite 
unaware of the vast bird population slumbering beneath his feet. 
For, during the day, the ‘“ Cockles” are all asleep in their 
burrows ; some of these they have stolen from, and perhaps 
share with the rabbits, others they have excavated for themselves. 
Some of the burrows go straight in, but the greater number have 
yarious turns and twists, so that it is a tedious business, some- 
times, to dig to and to reach the single white egg, which is 
almost the size of an ordinary hen’s egg. We have sometimes 
met small parties of these Shearwaters abroad on the sea during 
the day-time, and during the autumn we have seen the water 
covered by large flocks of them throughout the day, but certainly 
at the nesting season they are almost exclusively nocturnal, and 
do not come out from their holes to feed until quite late at 
night. One beautiful summers night that we spent on 
Skomer, with Mr. Mortimer Propert, for the purpose of 
making acquaintance with the Shearwaters, we were greatly 
surprised at the late hour they emerged from their burrows. 
We went out several times after sunset to search for them, 
but all in vain, none had appeared. Several times we re- 
sumed our game at whist in Mr. Vaughan Davies’ hospitable 
