MANX SHEARWATER 555 



several minutes. I have never seen it take a distinct head- 

 long plunge after the fashion of Auks and Cormorants. 

 As a rule it is found scattered widely over the sea, but small 

 flocks rest sometimes on the surface. Though strongly 

 crepuscular and nocturnal, yet numbers may be seen 

 together in the middle of the day. 



Flight. The aerial movements are familiar and charac- 

 teristic. Five or six flaps of the wings in rapid succession 

 are followed by a buoyant and graceful gliding motion, and 

 one cannot fail to notice how, without apparent effort, the 

 bird wheels from side to side on rigid and outspread pinions. 



Voice. The hoarse crowing uttered at the breeding- 

 colonies and in the darkness of the night, sounds strange 

 and weird. The first note may be syllabled cuck, the second 

 varies from keck to a loud cdca, after which there follows 

 a slight pause, then a terminal double vowel-sound like o-o 

 or o-u. Thus one might attempt to describe the voice 

 syllables as ctick-kek-d-o or cuck-cacd-o-u, usually repeated 

 three times. I have never heard the bird utter any sound 

 when roaming over the sea by day. 



Food. Floating offal, especially oily substances, and 

 cuttle-fish form a considerable portion of the diet ; small 

 fish are also rapidly snatched up as the bird immerses itself 

 immediately beneath the surface of the water. 



Nest. In spring, about the month of April, Manx 

 Shearwaters congregate at their breeding-haunts, by far the 

 greater numbers resorting to islands rather than to the 

 mainland. They breed chiefly in burrows excavated to a 

 considerable depth in the soft, turfy soil on the slopes of 

 cliffs of varying altitudes. The Islanders off the Kerry 

 coast informed me that by enlarging the burrows they 

 could reach the sitting-birds, which they pulled out and 

 despatched for food. The birds bite hard to defend them- 

 selves and their offspring. In some instances they do not 

 enter burrows, laying in crevices or under large stones. 



Grass is the chief material of which the nest is composed, 

 and this, in some instances, appears to be carried to the 

 burrows in a fresh and quite green condition (Aplin, 

 'Zoologist,' 1903, p. 213). In other cases the egg, white in 

 colour, is deposited on the bare soil. Both birds share in 

 the task of incubation, and it is generally believed that the 

 males feed by day over the sea. The solitary young one 

 (usually hatched about the middle of June) remains in the 

 burrow dependent on its parents until some time after it is 



