On the " Ca/ioice^^ of the Bermudas. li? 



6th July, 1901, by ^Ir. A. S. Meek. About ten specimens 

 examined. 



Tins fine rat is widely different from any species described 

 as a Uromi/s, and could only be confounded with Ramsay's 

 " Mas salamonis " *, which mi^ht be also a member of the 

 present genus. But the colour of salamonis is said to be 

 " light ashy grey," and the skull, though in general very like 

 that of U. sapientis, has a distinctly projecting anterior 

 zygoma- root. 



LXXI. — The " Cahoxve" of the Bermudas. 



To the Editors of the 'Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History .^ 



Gentlemen, — My attention has only just been called to an 

 article in your January number on tlie caliowe, a supposed 

 extinct bird of Bermuda. The writer categorically asserts 

 that it was not a siiearwater and that it is extinct. I venture, 

 on the contrary, to maintain that it is a shearwater and was 

 certainly not extinct a few years ago. 1 was resident in 

 Bermuda for three years, and the cahowe was well known by 

 that name to the fishermen. Before I obtained the bird I 

 mentioned it to Sir W. Jardine (' (Jontrib, to Ornithology,' 

 1849, p. 79). I, with the late fcjir J. Campbell Orde, after- 

 wards obtained both birds and eggs near Cooper's Island; 

 so did Col. H. ^I, Drummond-IIay, Lieut.-Col. W'edderburn, 

 and afterwards Capt. I'rotter, of Dereham Park, and (in \til\) 

 Capt. Reid, R.E. Neither ^Ir. Hurdis nor -Mr. Jones (' Natu- 

 ralist in Bermuda,' p. 94) ever doubted for a moment tiiat the 

 cahowe was Puffinus ohscurus (Gm.), with which Mr. Salvin 

 rightly identifies F. Auduboni. The ten reasons assigned 

 by Mr. Yerrill for the caliowe not being a shearwater are most 

 of them proofs that it is — e. g., that it breeds in holes or 

 burrows, that it only visits the island in the breeding-season, 

 that it is nocturnal and rarely seen in the daytime, tliat it 

 lays white eggs (as do all the petrel tribe, but none of the 

 auks), that it has a sharp bite, &.c. &c. &c. Then he informs 

 us that " the shearwaters .... are inedible." On the con- 

 trary, the young in many places are highly esteemed for food. 

 Willoughby, 250 years ago, described liow they were captured 

 and sold for food in the Isle of Man. Numbers are caught 



* r. Liim. .Sec. X. S. W. vii. p. 4:J (1882). 



