THE MANX SHEARWATER. 2^9 



Family-PUFFINID&> Subfamily PUFFININsE. 



MANX SHEARWATER. 



Pnffi,nus anglorum (TEMM.) 



THE Manx Shearwater appears to have escaped the attention of the earliest 

 European Zoologists, notwithstanding the pains which were bestowed by 

 Gesner and Aldrovandus npon the discovery and identification of rare or 

 imperfectly known species of birds. Our countryman Dr. C.iius sent to Gesner 

 a drawing and description of the " Puphinus anglicus," which Aldrovandus 

 improved into P/iffinus anglorum ; but the bird in question was the common 

 Puffin (Fraterada arcticaj, and not the Shearwater. The transfer of the generic 

 and specific names of the Puffin to the Shearwater was accomplished at a later 

 date. The Shearwater was not overlooked longer than the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, when specimens of our modern Piiffinus anglorum entered the 

 Repository of the Royal Society, and Tradescant's Museum. The range of this 

 Shearwater has proved to be less extensive than those of some of its congeners. 

 It appears to occur sporadically in most parts of the North Atlantic. According 

 to Faber, this Shearwater remains on the Iceland seas all the year through ; but 

 it is most probably a summer visitor to Iceland, nesting chiefly in the south, as 

 for example upon the Westmann Isles. Hagerup includes the Manx Shearwater 

 in his Birds of Greenland, but we have no information that it nests on that 

 continent. 



It was supposed at one time to be a common visitor to the coast of the 

 Eastern United States ; but American ornithologists assure ns that it is rarely 

 obtained on their sea-board. Captain Savile Reid referred to the present species 

 a Shearwater which had been captured while sitting on its solitary egg, in a 

 rocky hole on the south shore of Bermuda ; but without doubting the correctness 

 of his identification, we must conclude that the event was an exceptional one. 

 There is no other record of the Manx Shearwater nesting in Bermuda. Never- 

 theless, this Shearwater winters as far south as the coast of Brazil on the 

 western side of the Atlantic. It is also reputed to nest in the Azores. Mr. J. J. 

 Dalgleish has recently recorded that the Manx Shearwater breeds in the Madeiran 

 seas. Mr Ogilvie-Grant seems to have failed to find the Manx Shearwater at the 



