450 MR. J. H. GURNEY, JUX., ON THE ISLES OF SCILLY. 



issue voluntarily from its hole in the daytime, and that when 

 leaving by steamer, we saw, a few miles to the northward of the 

 Scillies, several small flocks, and a gathering of seventy or eighty, 

 at about 10.30 a.m. Yet a person might sit down among 

 their burrows upon the island of Annet and not know of 

 their existence. Their plan of only leaving and entering 

 these burrows after dark is a provision of nature for greater 

 security, their eggs being so much easier to obtain than the 

 Razorbill's, or the Guillemot's, hence these wise birds are 

 careful not to draw attention to them by coming out of their 

 holes in the daytime. It would take very little to extirpate a 

 colony of Shearwaters such as that on Annet, and if they had 

 not fortunately as warm a friend and guardian in the present 

 Lord Proprietor as in the last, their days would soon be numbered. 

 The recent robbery had been committed by some Tresco men, and 

 Mr. Dorrien Smith speedily had the culprits found out and 

 brought up before him. Alas ! there appeared to be a fatality on 

 the poor Shearwaters in 1887, for before they had time to recover, 

 a wreck took place by the Bishop Rock, and sad havoc was made of 

 the island of Annet by five hundred head of cattle, which were 

 saved from the ship, and landed there. They trampled everything 

 to pieces, broke in all the Shearwaters' holes, probably destroy- 

 ing many birds, and made a ruin of everything (J. H. - J. and 

 E. D. S. in lift.)* 



The Scillonian name for the Manx Shearwater is " Crew ; " 

 while a Puffin is called a " Pope." t There is so much similarity 

 between the words, that we cannot but think the " Creyser " of 

 Richard Carew to be the Shearwater (* Survey of Cornwall' [1602] 

 p. 35), all the more so that at various breeding stations it has had 

 names bestowed upon it beginning with the letter C, indicative of 



* On the 31st of March, 1871, there were ninety-nine Manx Shearwaters 

 in Leadenhall Market, which showed by their clean plumage, and dislocated 

 necks, that they had been caught in their burrows. Two of the salesmen 

 said they came from Cornwall ; and, I suspect, though it was contradicted in 

 the * Field,' that they had been stolen from Annet. I could not learn that 

 they are ever eaten by the inhabitants of the Scilly Islands, either fresh or 

 salted. 



f Harting gives a list of Cornish names of Birds from the vocabularies of 

 Borlase, Pryce, and Polwhele (I.e. p. 312), as well as a list of provincial 

 names now, or formerly, in use (p. 314). 



