UFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 71 



bars on the sides and flanks are all points to be noted in the recogni- 

 tion of the greater shearwater. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Breeding range. — ^Known to breed only on Inaccessible Island in 

 the Tristan da Cunha group in the middle of the South Atlantic 

 Ocean. 



Range. — The entire Atlantic Ocean, from northern Europe (Heli- 

 goland) to southern Africa (Cape of Good Hope) on the eastern 

 side; and from the Arctic Circle in Greenland to southern South 

 America (Tierra del Fuego) on the western side. 



Spring rrdgraUon. — Early dates of arrival : Atlantic Ocean, 43° 

 10' north, May 26; Bermuda, June 2; Rhode Island, off Seaconnet 

 Point, June 2 ; Massachusetts, Cape Cod, May 26 ; Nova Scotia, June 

 19 ; southern Greenland, Cape Farewell, June 7. 



Fan TmgraMon. — Late dates of departure : Greenland, Cape Fare- 

 well, September; "Nova Scotia, Sable Island, September 3; New 

 York, Long Island, October 2; Massachusetts, November (latest 

 December 31). 



PUFFINUS PUFFINUS PUFFINUS (BtUnnich). 

 MANX SHEARWATEB. 



HABITS. 



Contributed hy Charles Wendell Townsend. 



The Manx shearwater, so called because it formerly bred in great 

 numbers on the Isle of Man, is mainly a bird of the British Islands. 

 As it is the familiar shearwater of Great Britain and bears a general 

 resemblance to the greater shearwater, it is probable that some of 

 the early records of this bird for America should be referred to the 

 latter species. Audubon (1840) says, "I have procured this species 

 to the westward of the banks of Newfoundland, or between their 

 soundings and the American coast." Baird, Brewer, and Eidgway 

 (1884) say: 



Mr. Boardman informs me that a single individual of tliis species has from 

 time to time been met with at sea off the coasts of Maine and Nova Scotia, but 

 he regards such an occurrence as something extremely uncommon and as purely- 

 accidental. This bird is also mentioned as being only an accidental and very 

 rare visitor on the coast of Long Island. 



Putnam (1856) included it in the avifauna of Essex County, Massa- 

 chusetts, from a skull in the Essex Institute, of a bird said to have 

 been killed in Salem Harbor, August 13, 1855. The skull has since 

 disappeared and there is no other record or remembrance of it, Reid 



