28 Mr. A. E. Vcnill on the 



was it to SCO, how greedily cvcrytliing was swallowed dowiic; 

 how incredible to speake, how many dozen of tiioes poore 

 silly creatures, that even oflered themselves to the slaughter, 

 wer tumbled downe into their Lottomlesse mawes : wherupon 

 (as the sore effect of so raiick a cause, the birds with all 

 being exceedeingly fatt) then sodenly followed a generall 

 surtettinge, much sicknesse, and many o£ their deathes." 



In the next year (1616) a law was passed, " but overlate," 

 to ])revent the "spoyle and havoek of the cahowes and other 

 birds." Cooper's Island, Castle Ish^nd. and several smaller 

 islands, where it probably bred, were fortified and garrisoned 

 from 1612 to 1620, and this was, without doubt, another 

 important factor in its extermination. 



The act of 1616 is thus referred to in Governor Butler's 

 * Historye' : — 



" In the same moneth he held his second generall Assize 

 at St. George's, as irregularly as the first, wherein not any 

 matter of note was handled, only a proclamation (or rather 

 article, as it was then tearmed) was published (but overlate) 

 against the spoylc and havoek of the cahowes, and other birds, 

 which already wer almost all of tliem killed and scared awaye 

 very improvidently by fire, diggciiige, stoneinge, and all 

 kinds of murtheringes." 



It was probably entirely extinct by 1625 or earlier, and it 

 seems to have been entirely forgotten by the natives for over 

 200 years. Mr. J. L. Hurdis, in 1849, thought that he had 

 rediscovered it breeding on Gurnet Head Kock, for he found 

 a few pairs of "dusky shearwaters" (probably Paffinus 

 Auduhoni) breeding there in crevices of the rocks. But the 

 cahow was certainly not a shearwater. None of the early 

 accounts apply to the shearwater, in respect to size, colour, 

 habits, &c. Moreover, the flesh and eggs of the bird are 

 described as of excellent flavour, which is not the case with 

 the shearwaters, all of which have such a strong, oily, and 

 musky flavour that they are inedible. Moreover, the cahow 

 bred chiefly in holes in the soil, "like conyes in a warren." 

 It laid one large white egg, "like a henne's egg" in size, 

 colour, and flavour. 



The early writers describe another nocturnal sea-bird that 

 they called the " pimlico," from its note ; but it was not 

 eaten by the settlers. This was, without much doubt, the 

 shearwater found by Mr. Hurdis. This name is still used by 

 the native fishermen for the shearwater. 



Some writers have been misled as to the breeding-place of 

 the cahow, in consequence of the name of the small, high, 

 almost inaccessible, bare island, now^ often called "Gurnet 



