432 PUFFINUS KUHLI. 
specimens. Can you wait?” Again, writing 8 October, 1850, he 
says: ‘J will send also (for I have received two more since I wrote 
to you) the egg of the big Shearwater.” 
The following is a copy of another letter to me from Dr. Frere, 
dated 9 Queen Street, Mayfair, 12 October, 1850 :—“ You are quite 
right in your wish to learn more about the eggs. What I have told 
you is, I dare say, far from conclusive to your sceptical mind; but 
I felt that I had no right, and have no right, to make you, whether 
you will or no, the depository of a fact that I do not want generally 
known, till after next season at least. I have been at some trouble 
and it has cost me something to get at these eggs, and I do not 
wish to be forestalled, as I might be, did it get more known than it 
is at present. A friend who was travelling promised to look out for» — 
eggs for me. He reported that on a certain rocky island there were 
four kinds of Shearwaters and Petrels, that he saw a fifth which he 
knew was the Common Petrel, out at sea, but he did not see it on 
land. He believes that he was the first Englishman who ever 
landed there. He gives me the Portuguese name for these four birds, 
and also the address of a bird-killer, I cannot call him a naturalist, 
in the neighbourhood of it. I wrote to him for what he can send. 
He sends me, with their country-names (he knows no other), four 
kinds of birds from this place—the Great Shearwater, the [Puffinus] 
obscurus, Bulwer’s Petrel, and Leach’s Petrel, besides a young 
Tern—also eggs which he asserts belong to each of these birds. 
They correspond with what the eggs of the birds ought to be, at 
least the large Shearwater does (so much so, indeed, that I received 
the egg first and never doubted that when I sent for the skin I 
should find it to be the Great), the Leach’s Petrels’ eggs are exactly 
like other Leach’s Petrels’ eggs, and some of the Bulwer’s my 
friend took himself, kicking the bird off the egg. 
«‘The man has no object in deceiving me. I should have paid 
him, for all he knew, just the same under all circumstances, and for 
my own part I am certainly quite satisfied, though I cannot say 
that this particular egg was laid by the bird that owned that 
particular skin, and if I were not so, I should begin to think 
whether, provided I shot a bird off the nest, that bird were the 
parent, a visitor, or a hired wet nurse. | can understand a man 
being doubtful with an egg like the Roseate Tern’s or any of the 
Ducks, when the mere fact of the eggs coming in the same box 
would not be sufficient ; but, if one is to believe anything, I believe 
these eggs to be, I don’t say Great Shearwaters’ eggs or Bulwer’s 
