634 LARID.E. 



dazzling whiteness, and of peculiarly beautiful texture ; it 

 measures two inches five lines in length, by one inch nine 

 lines in breadth, and is very large for the size of the bird. 

 When you kill a Shearwater by pressure, as I generally 

 did for the sake of her skin, she vomits a most abominable 

 oil, in which float so many particles of brilliant green that 

 it appears of that colour, though the stain it leaves is 

 yellow. The quantity got rid of in this way is sometimes 

 enormous. 



" When the young bird leaves the egg it is covered with 

 greyish-black down, except a stripe along the centre of the 

 breast and belly, which is white. I found a chick very 

 lively in an egg which had been taken from the burrow two 

 days previously to my examining it. My notice was at- 

 tracted by hearing a little voice in the basket as I sat pre- 

 paring a skin about midnight. I thought of Asmodeus in 

 the bottle immediately." 



The Manx Shearwater visits the coast of South Wales 

 in considerable numbers in spring. Mr. Gould mentions 

 having received from thence, through the medium of a 

 friend, no less than four dozens of these harmless creatures 

 at one time, with an assurance that as many more would 

 be forwarded if required. These were all evidently cap- 

 tured by the hand, none of them exhibiting any of the 

 usual indications of having been shot. 



The Manx Shearwater is only an occasional visiter to 

 Ireland, and, according to Mr. Thompson, is more rare 

 now than formerly. It breeds every season at St. Kilda 

 and Soa, among the islands of the Hebrides, at Pappa 

 Westra in the Orkneys, and at Foula and Unst in Shet- 

 land, depositing its single egg either in a rabbit-burrow or 

 a crevice in the rock ; but as soon as the young are able 

 to follow the parents, all take to the open sea together. 

 As observed in the south, these birds are somewhat ere- 



