256 A. EF. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands. 668 
The Noddy, during the past fifty years, has only been observed as a 
very rare accidental visitant. 
But it is possible that the original Egg Birds may have included 
other species that are now confined to the West Indies and other 
southern waters, in the breeding season, for they were only summer 
visitors in Bermuda. The large size of the eggs (equal to a hen’s. 
egg) might indicate the larger tern (Sterna maxima), which still 
breeds in the Bahamas. The Sterna anosthetus, which breeds in 
the Bahamas, may also have been included. 
c.— The Cahow ; its History and Extermination. 
The most interesting as well as most important native bird, when 
the islands were first settled, was called the Cahow, from its note. 
It bred in almost incredible numbers on some of the smaller islands 
near St. George’s and Castle Harbor, especially on Cooper’s Island. 
It was nocturnal in its habits and was readily called by making loud 
vocal sounds, and then easily captured by hand, at night. Its flesh 
was described as of good flavor, and its eggs were highly prized as 
food. As it came to land and bred in the early part of the winter, 
when no other birds or eggs were available, it was quickly extermi- 
nated for food by the reckless colonists. 
It laid a single, large, white egg, described as like a hen’s egg in 
size, color, and flavor. The nest, according to the earliest writers, 
was a burrow in the sand like a coney’s, and mot in crevices of the 
rocks, like that of the shearwaters, with which many writers have 
tried to identify it. Governor Butler, in his ‘Historye of the Ber- 
mudaes,’ alone stated that its eggs and young were found in crevices 
of the ledges, but he evidently did not have the advantage of per- 
sonal experience, for at that time the bird was probably extinct, or 
very nearly so. 
The time of laying its eggs is a very remarkable point, in which 
it differed from all other birds of northern latitudes. The early con- 
temporary writers all agree that it laid its egg ‘in December or Jan- 
uary’ or ‘in the coldest and darkest months of the year.’ The 
shearwaters, even in the West Indies, lay their eggs in spring! (March 
and April) and their eggs are so musky that they are not edible ; 
certainly no one would compare them to a hen’s egg. Their flesh 
also has so strong a flavor of bad fish-oil and musk that no one 
would eat it, unless on the verge of starvation ; though the newly 
hatched young are sometimes eaten by sailors for lack of anything 
better. 
