8390 SHEARWATER 
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 Ornithologia (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.”? MRay’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 Puffin 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 Procejlariidx (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 
1 By mistake, no doubt, for flying or ‘‘hovering,” the latter being the 
word used by Browne in his Account 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 
the latter’s ‘‘Shearwater”’ with the ‘‘ Puffin of the Isle of Man.” 
2 Lira, Lyra or Lyrtm (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 Skrape 
or Skrofa, and considering Prof. Skeat’s remarks (Etym. Dict. 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. 
3 Mr. Salvin’s catalogue of the specimens of Procellariid# in the British 
Museum, which is understood to be in a forward condition, will doubtless throw 
much light on this difficult question. 
4 The chief exception would seem to be the Bay of Bengal and thcrice 
throughout the western part of the Malay Archipelago, where, though they 
may occur, they are certainly uncommon. 
