Incuba- 
tion, &c. 
* 
530 NATATORES. PUFFINUS. SHEARWATER. 
From the accounts transmitted to us by WiLLoucusy and 
Pennant, this species appears, at the time they wrote, to 
have resorted in great numbers to the Calf of Man, a small 
islet at the south end of the main island, and only di- 
vided from it by a narrow channel. But, from the informa- 
tion I have been able to obtain, confirmed by the testimony 
of Sir Wittiam JarpINnE, (who visited the Isle of Man a 
few years ago with the express view of ascertaining this and 
some other points connected with Ornithology), it seems now 
to be entirely deserted by these birds, a circumstance in all 
probability occasioned by the wanton and greedy destruction 
of their eggs and young, for Pennayr tells us, that in his 
day great numbers were annually killed by the person who 
then farmed this islet, as the birds were in high estimation, 
both in a fresh and salted state. This Shearwater was also 
said to breed upon Scilly Islands, but not having extended 
my inquiries to that group, I am unable to say whether it is 
now to be found there. It is still, however, abundant in the 
Orkneys, where it breed in holes scratched in the earth that 
fill up the interstices of the rocks and bold headlands, and is 
stated by Low to be the main object of pursuit to the rock- 
men, who endanger their lives in climbing the most awful 
precipices for the eggs and young of the various waterfowl 
that make their nests in such situations. Like the rest of the 
genus, this bird lays but one white egg, of a rounded form, 
being equally obtuse at each end, and not inferior in size to 
that of a domestic fowl. It arrives at its breeding station in 
February or March; and soon after August, when its young 
is able to fly, deserts it for the open sea, migrating, as the 
winter approaches, in a southerly direction towards the coast 
of Spain, the Mediterranean, &c. In Britain it is almost 
entirely confined to the western coast, being of very rare 
occurrence on the eastern, where I have only met with one 
individual, which was shot upon an excursion to the Fern: 
Islands. Wuttovcusy (in his Ornithology, so admirably 
correct for the time at which he wrote), has described this 
