THE MANX SHEARWATER 



(Puffinus anglorum) 



FAR out at sea when the evening's dusk is falling you may 

 often observe a dark-coloured bird with white under plumage 

 flit by just above the waves another and another make their 

 appearance, and you soon find out that a party of Manx 

 Shearwaters have paid your vessel a passing call. They are 

 nocturnal birds for the most part, spending the hours of day- 

 light in their burrows, and coming out in the gloom to speed 

 across the frowning waters in quest of food. There is some- 

 thing very exciting about the appearance of this singular bird. 

 The noisy Gulls which have been playing about all day drop 

 slowly astern as the sun nears the west; the parties of 

 Razorbills and Guillemots and Puffins have sped away to 

 their distant breeding colonies ; and the wide waste of waters 

 seems unusually desolate and dreary as the night approaches, 

 and the evening breeze fluttering in the sails and through the 

 rigging is the only sound that breaks the oppressive stillness. 

 But the hour of the Manx Shearwater's ghostly revelry has 

 come ; he holds high carnival over the waste of gray waters, 

 flitting about in most erratic manner in his wild impetuous 

 course, following the curve of every wave, dipping down into 

 the hollows, where he is almost invisible, and then mounting 

 the foamy crests, where you catch a brief glimpse of his 

 hurried movements. 



I well remember how numerous these birds were on the 



