The Great Shearwater. 22 7 



it is sufficiently frequent to have obtained the name of "Hagdown" in the west. 

 Its presence on the western side of Scotland was first ascertained in July, 1885, 

 when I chanced to find a derelict Great Shearwater on the shore at Lowergill, 

 Skye. Another was obtained at Tiree, in October, 1892. Two years later, Professor 

 Newton and Mr. H. L. Popham independently met with many Great Shearwaters 

 off the Butt of Lewis and North Rona. Again, in 1895, Professor Newton counted 

 fifty Great Shearwaters between Barra Head and St. Kilda. He searched for the 

 species in 1896 as vainly as I did myself; but better luck befel Messrs. Barrington 

 and Harvie-Brown, for they discovered numbers of Great Shearwaters off Rockall, 

 in June. These birds were met with both singly, in flocks of their own kind — 

 numbering as many as forty birds — and also mingling with vast flocks of Manx 

 Shearwaters. A specimen, shot by Mr. Harvie-Brown, proved to be in moult, 

 having many feathers in various stages of growth. This coincided with Mr. 

 Popham's experience, that the Great Shearwaters which he saw in the summer 

 of 1894 were adults which could not fly, having apparently moulted out their 

 primaries. The late Mr. E. Hargitt possessed a Great Shearwater taken in Green- 

 land on the 28th of June, which had the "outer primaries in their sheaths and 

 undeveloped " (Saunders). 



It is obvious that the Great Shearwater is unlikely to breed in its moulting 

 season. The foregoing facts tend to disprove the view of earlier naturalists, that 

 the Great Shearwater breeds in the northern hemisphere. Moreover, Captain 

 Collins, who has a special acquaintance with the Great Shearwater, states that this 

 Petrel arrives on the American fishing grounds only at the end of May. Large 

 flocks usually arrive at the end of that month, and there remain, though they 

 occasionally appear to be scarce at midsummer; having no doubt scattered over a 

 wide area of the Atlantic. Collins believes that this Shearwater breeds during our 

 winter : " having opened many hundreds of these birds, he has never found their 

 sexual organs in a condition that would indicate that they were incubating." The 

 ovary and oviduct of the female Great Shearwater shot by Harvie-Brown at 

 Rockall were examined by Dr. Gadow, who decided that the bird had not bred 

 and would not have bred within the year. Mr. Henry Evans, of Jura, who has 

 visited St. Kilda in his yacht on so many occasions, states that Neil Ferguson 

 and other St. Kilda fishermen were fishing a mile or two west of St. Kilda, on 

 the 7th of August, 1897, when they noticed a Great Shearwater on the water near 

 the boat. A quantity of ling's entrails were thrown over. The Shearwater hurried 

 to the feast and was felled with an oar. " Ferguson thinks that this Shearwater 

 breeds on the Dune, because the bird has been obtained there before, and because 

 also there was a bare nesting-patch on the breast of the specimen captured, ' the 



