GREAT SHEARWATER. 753 



resorts to the Southern Ocean for breeding purposes, although 

 as yet nothing authentic is known of its nesting haunts. 



Thomas Allis's Report on the Birds of Yorkshire, written 

 in 1844, contains the following allusion to this species, but, 

 in the light of more recent knowledge, it is doubtful if the 

 specimens mentioned were to be referred to the Great Shear- 

 water or to P. griseus : 



Puffinus major. Greater Shearwater I am informed by my friend 

 James H. Tuke that a specimen of this bird has been procured at Robin 

 Hood's Bay ; another specimen was shot at Bridlington about two weeks 



ago, and it was procured by Mr. from near Warwick. A. 



Strickland remarks, ' The two specimens from which this bird was 

 first constituted a British bird were both killed on different parts of 

 this coast, and are still in my collection ; I have since heard of another 

 killed near Whitby ; it is now ascertained that this is not the same 

 as the Cinerius Shearwater, as was supposed by Mr. Gould, but a 

 distinct species, this bird frequenting the northern regions, and the 

 latter in the Mediterranean and a more southern range." 



The early Yorkshire records appertaining to the Shear- 

 water are now known to be inextricably entangled with those 

 of its congener, the Sooty Shearwater, which was supposed 

 to be a dark, or immature, form of this bird, and thus it is 

 extremely difficult to give correct details of occurrences 

 without examination of the specimens. 



The Great Shearwater is an autumn and winter visitant 

 to the Yorkshire seaboard, but is not of frequent or regular 

 occurrence. As in the case of some of the rarer Gulls, Skuas, 

 and Petrels, it is met with most frequently in the neighbourhood 

 of the Headland of Flamborough, being attracted to that 

 locality by the shoals of fish which are found there in the 

 herring season, and an instance is known of one being taken 

 on a hook attached to a fishing line. It was unusually 

 abundant in September 1881 ; and in August 1876 several 

 " Big Shearwaters " were reported to me by the Redcar 

 fishermen. 



For purposes of reference a list of occurrences is here 

 appended, though it must be borne in mind that, in considering 

 it, the instances are not all authenticated, and the reader is 

 requested to peruse the history of the next species, P. griseus 



