PUFFINIDA. 739 
THE SOOTY SHEARWATER. 
Purrinus Griseus (J. F. Gmelin). 
The Sooty Shearwater was for many years considered to be either 
a dark form or the young of the Great Shearwater, and there is 
consequently some difficulty in saying to which of these species 
many of the earlier records refer. Identified examples have been 
obtained—during the months of our summer and autumn—at 
North Berwick in Scotland ; near Newbiggin in Northumberland in 
1897; along the coast of Yorkshire, especially off Flamborough ; 
near Lynn in Norfolk; and in the Channel from Sussex to Cornwall; 
but this species is everywhere much rarer than its larger congener. 
In Ireland individuals have been secured on the coast of Kerry and 
in Belfast Lough, while others have been observed. 
This Shearwater has occurred in the Feroes and once near 
Heligoland; while it visits the coasts of France, and has been 
recorded from Portugal. It is generally distributed over the North 
Atlantic, and is well known as the “ Black Hagdon” on the North 
American fishing-banks, where, however, Capt. Collins says that it 
is far less plentiful than the Great Shearwater. All its breeding- 
haunts appear to be in the southern hemisphere, and it is from the 
Chatham group and other islands and coasts in New Zealand waters 
that our knowledge of its nidification is derived. In the Pacific 
Mr. A. A. Lane met with this species in vast numbers on the coast 
of Chile in the early part of November, probably on the way to their 
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