262 A. BE. Verrill— The Bermuda Islands. 674 
It has long been thought, but without any evidence, that ‘“ Gurnet 
Head Rock” (pl. lxxix, fig. 1) was one of its breeding places, and 
from its isolation and inaccessibility, the only place where it might 
have continued to live long after it had disappeared elsewhere. 
Perhaps this was partly due to a misunderstanding of the name, 
which, as I have elsewhere shown, does not refer to a bird but to a 
fish. (See pp. 454-6 for the history of this name.) 
Mr. J. L. Hurdis in 1849, visited this rock, which is a small pre- 
cipitous island, situated off Castle Harbor, and found there the nests 
of a shearwater (doubtless Audubon’s shearwater) én the crevices of 
the rocks. He therefore concluded that he had found and identified 
the long lost cahow. His identification has been accepted by other 
later writers on the ornithology of the Bermudas, apparently with- 
out any adequate consideration of the facts stated by the early 
writers from personal observation. Among others, Newton, in his 
Dictionary of Birds, 1890-93, has adopted the same view, but with- 
out any additional evidence and without critical discussion of the 
records. 
Mr. John T. Bartram, a resident of Bermuda, after long experience 
in collecting the birds and their eggs, concluded (1878) that the 
original Cahow was extinct, and that the Pimlico was the dusky 
shear-water (Puffinus Auduboni), Capt. S. G. Reid (1884) was 
inclined to adopt Bartram’s opinion, but suggested that the Cahow 
might have been one of the larger Shearwaters, still found there 
occasionally, but in his formal list he put it under P. obscurus,= 
Auduboni. Bartram was doubtless correct in this case. 
Governor Butler and the Rev. Lewis Hughes stated that a boat 
could go to its breeding places and get a load of the bird and its 
eggs in a short time (see also Strachy’s account, above). This was 
apparently done only inthe night. Therefore the islands visited must 
have been near at hand and easily accessible, with safe landings, even 
in winter, when the eggs were sought. Gurnet Head Rock does not 
fulfill any of these conditions. It is several miles from St. George’s, 
then the chief settlement and capital; it stands isolated outside all 
the other islands, so that it is exposed to the full force of the sea on 
all sides, and in December and January the sea is here always boister- 
ous; it has no place where a boat can safely land, unless in nearly 
calm weather and by daylight ; its sides are formed by nearly per- 
pendicular, exceedingly rough, high cliffs, which can hardly be 
scaled without risk of loss of life or limbs, unless by means of ropes 
and ladders. Moreover, the top is of very small area and almost 
