Bird-Caves of the Bermudas. 627 



preserved for the Bostou Museum of Natural History, 

 where it now is. 



In one of the tliree stalactites collected by Mr. Mowbray 

 in Crystal Cave, he discovered three feathers embedded 

 about an eighth of an inch in the calcite, one of which was 

 brown and the other two white. With respect to these, 

 Mr. Mowbray wrote me on the 10th of February, 1916 : 

 " The finding of these feathers, agreeing in colour with the 

 descriptiou of the early writers that the Cahou was russet 

 and white, and the skull differing from those of the Shear- 

 water, convinced me that the find was a good one and 

 without question the long-looked for Cahou." 



When my above-mentioned work on the Cahow appears, 

 there will be found in it a full discussion of these "russet 

 feathers,^^ and of the hazy idea the early writers had of tliat 

 colour. Then, too, the fossil bird-bones from Bermuda, 

 turned over to me for description, go to prove that the 

 extinct Cahow was a Petrel and not a Shearwater at all. 



Birds of the latter group, according to Mr. Mowbray, are 

 still breeding on certain of the Bermuda Islands — Puffinus 

 vhscwus among them ; they lay their eggs at the end of 

 February and early in March. Two of these localities are, 

 I believe, known to Mr. Mowbray alone ; he proposes to 

 keep the secret, and allow these much-persecuted birds 

 to breed in peace and safety. 



Crystal Cave was discovered in a peculiar and interesting 

 manner. It seems that the property, on which the entrance 

 to it occurs, is owned by a negro named Gibbons. One of 

 his sons and some other negro boys were playing ball one 

 day on this land, when the ball rolled down a big hole that 

 had not previously been noticed by them. Mr. Mowbray 

 says : '' This hole, no doubt, was opened up as an air hole, 

 caused by the rise and fall of the tide in the cave, and was 

 not the entrance by which the birds eiitered. That entrance 

 must have been closed by subsidence.'^ This Gibbons boy 

 crawled into this newly discovered entrance after his ball, 

 and when once inside he soon espied the calcite formations 



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