no Recent Literature. V]l^. 



The paper as a whole is a most important contribution to our knowledge 

 of the natural history of two previously very little known areas. — J. A. A. 



Verrill's ' The Story of the Cahow.' ' — When the Bermudas were first 

 visited l^y Europeans, about three hundred years ago (1593 and later), they 

 were without human inhabitants, but were the resort of immense numbers 

 of seabirds, notably of Terns and Shearwaters, doubtless several species 

 of each, and, among other birds, by the ' Cahow,' of which we have only 

 the imperfect accounts left us by the first visitors to these islands. These, 

 quoted at length by Professor Verrill, fail to give us a very satisfactory 

 description of the bird, but sufficient to show that it could not be any 

 species known to science. It was a migratory bird, which came to the 

 islands in October in great abundance, and left in June, depositing its 

 single large white egg in a burrow in the sand, in December and January. 

 Its flesh was described as excellent, "and for that reason it was captured 

 at night in large numbers, while its eggs were constantly gathered for 

 food." From these facts Professor Verrill argues that it could not have 

 been a shearwater, with which some writers have identified it, as these 

 birds do not breed till March or April, even in the West Indies, and their 

 flesh is oily and nauseating, and their eggs inusky and inedible. Nor 

 could it be any species of gull or tern, which also breed late and lay 

 spotted eggs. It is described as of the size of a pigeon, with a strong 

 hooked bill, a russet brown back, white belly, and russet and white wing- 

 quills. Concerning its aftinities Verrill says: "There is no known living 

 bird that agrees with it in these several characters. Most certainly it 

 could not have been a shearwater, nor any member of the petrel family, 

 all of which have such a disagreeable flavor that neither their flesh nor 

 their eggs are edible. It seems to me far more probable that it was allied 

 to the auks (Alcid;?), manj' of which burrow in the gi-ound and lay white, 

 edible eggs. The northern auks have also edible flesh and often a stiong 

 hooked bill. But no existing species breeds so far south, nor do thev 

 breed in winter. The Cahow may have spent the summer in the southern 

 hemisphere, but possibly it was an arctic bird that produced a southern 

 brood in winter. Or it may possibly have been a localized pelagic species, 

 coming to the land only for breeding purposes." 



So many of the birds and their eggs were gathered for food that as 

 early as 1616 they had declined so greatly in numbers that a law was 

 passed, "but overlate," "against the spoj'le and havock of the cahowes, 

 and other birds, which were almost all of them killed and scared away 

 very improvidently by fire, diggeinge, stoneinge, and all kinds of mur- 

 therings.'' Doubtless the cahows were not long after whollv exterminated. 



1 The Story of the Cahow. The Mysterious Extinct Bird of the Bermudas. 

 By Professor A. E. Verrill, Yale University. Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 

 LX, Nov., 1901, pp. 22-30. 



