128 
MAXX SHEARWATER. 
one was taken alive near Chipping Norton, September, 1889. 
In Ireland they are summer visitants, near Dublin and 
other parts, but locally. 
They occur, as just mentioned, in the Orkneys, but not 
very numerously; also in the Hebrides. 
They are migratory birds, arriving in the north in Feb¬ 
ruary and March, and departing in the autumn. 
In their habits they are somewhat addicted to the twilight, 
flying abroad when the ‘stars glimmer red,’ to take their 
pastime, and seek their daily food. 
They roost with the head turned back, and the bill buried 
in the feathers. They are altogether birds of the sea, except 
when drawn to land for the purpose of breeding. Flocks of 
as many as three hundred have been seen together, and they 
appear to be easily approached. Meyer writes, speaking of 
their mode of feeding, ‘It is very amusing to watch a flock 
of these Petrels thus employed; the birds are seen swimming 
on the waves with their heads in the water, all in the 
same direction, and moving on very rapidly, the hindermost 
bird always flying up and settling in advance of the fore¬ 
most, like rooks following a plough. Fishermen, when in 
pursuit of their calling, watch carefully the movements of 
these birds, and when they see them thus employed, lower 
their nets with a tolerable certainty of finding the shoals, 
of which they are in search, near the surface.’ 
The eggs and young are in considerable request in the 
places where they occur, but the natural consequence is, or 
rather has been, a great decrease in their numbers in places 
where they used formerly to abound. 
They swim low in the water, and have the same habit 
as the other, of seeming to run along the top of the waves, 
scudding lightly over them, and at times, as it were, sup¬ 
porting themselves on their feet to pick up food. 
They feed on fish—sprats, anchovies, and others, shrimps, 
cuttle-fish, worms, and other marine productions, and with 
these converted into an oil the young are fed. It is also 
made use of as a means of defence, blown from the tubular 
nostrils. 
These birds resort for the purpose of incubation to the 
highest grassy parts of small rocky islands and the kindred 
shores of the mainland, as also to sandy places, where they 
breed in burrows, going to the depth of about two feet. The 
excavating of these appears to occupy a considerable time. 
