738 GREAT SHEARWATER. 
Collins states that on the fishing-grounds off New England and British 
North America it arrives in May, remaining till October or Novem- 
ber—according to the time of the first snow ; and, although in the 
course of thirty years’ experience in taking birds of this and the 
next species for bait he must have seen thousands opened, he never 
found one which showed any signs of breeding. The Great Shearwater 
probably resorts to some of the islands in the Southern Ocean for 
the purpose of reproduction; specimens having been obtained off 
the Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego, as well as near the Cape 
of Good Hope. Round the Azores and the islets between Madeira 
and the Canaries the resident species is P. AuA/i (identical with 
P. borealis of Cory), which visits the western coasts of France and 
the Peninsula, and is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ; this 
species is of a much paler brown on the upper parts, and has a 
yellow-coloured and deeper bill. 
Nothing is known of the nidification of the Great Shearwater, for 
the egg figured by Hewitson from the Madeiran Desertas is that 
of P. kuhli. The food consists chiefly of squid, and Mr. Gurney 
found the horny jaws of small cuttle-fish in the stomach of a bird shot 
near Flamborough; but any animal substance is greedily swallowed, 
and, as already mentioned, this species is systematically taken with 
a hook, to furnish bait for fish, When alighting this Shearwater 
strikes the water with great violence—in a manner quite different 
from that of a Gull—and then dives ; pursuing its prey under water 
with great rapidity, and often tearing bait from the fishermen’s hooks. 
In the Atlantic it may be seen skimming the surface of the water 
without any apparent effort, either wing alternately depressed or 
sharply elevated ; but at times it flaps its pinions freely. 
The adult has the bill dark brown ; head and nape ash-brown ; 
neck whitish, when fully extended in flight ; feathers of the mantle 
ash-brown with paler edges ; quills and tail-feathers blackish ; upper 
tail-coverts mottled brown and white ; under-parts white, with some 
pale brown running up the centre of the abdomen and on the 
thighs; under tail-coverts brown; legs and feet pinkish-white in life, 
drying yellow. Length 19 in. ; wing 12°7 in. 
In 1822, Faber, who had never handled a specimen, gave the 
name Procellaria major to a bird which was probably of this species, 
and the name has been widely adopted ; but in 1818 O’Reilly had 
fully described the bird, with an excellent figure, under the name of 
Procellaria gravis (Voy. to Greenland &c., p. 140, pl. 12, fig. 1). 
