CHAPTER X 



HAUNTS OF THE SHEARWATER 

 ' From the far-off isles enchanted.' LONGFELLOW. 



THE average stay-at-home Briton, whose experiences of 

 the sea are for the most part confined to an occasional 

 run across the Channel or visit to a Norway salmon- 

 river, has not many opportunities of making ^"quaint- 

 ance with ocean-birds. Comparatively few of us have 

 seen an Albatross on the wing, and fewer still are ever 

 likely to witness its eccentric courtships. But we have 

 still within the limits of the British Isles a few colonies 

 remaining of a small cousin of 'the largest of sea-fowles 

 a typical representative of the great oceanic family of 

 the Tubinarides the Manx Shearwater. 



Driven from the island from which it takes its name, 

 where once it bred in enormous numbers, the Shear- 

 water still congregates during the breeding season by 

 thousands in Eigg, and in smaller numbers in others of 

 the western islands of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and 

 has a home on one, and one only, of the Scilly Isles, 

 within a mile or two of the reefs of evil repute among 

 which Queen Anne's fleet on its return from Spain, 

 confused by continuous fogs, and believing itself far to 



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