AN EXPEDITION TO THE SALVAGE ISLANDS. 4l L 



biting with great vigour, their curved bills, with their sharp, cut- 

 ting edges, being apt to leave an ugly wound on those unskilled 

 in the mode of handling them. Though the majority pass the 

 day in the holes in the rocks, many also rest at sea, and may be 

 seen in flocks floating quietly on the surface at most hours of the 

 day. On our return journey, the ' Pedro' ran right over one of 

 these Shearwaters, sleeping peacefully with its head under its 

 wing, but beyond a rough awakening, it flew off apparently none 

 the worse. After finishing our six o'clock meal, we generally 

 spent the rest of the evening smoking our pipes, and skinning 

 what remained of the birds got during our day's collecting, 

 and attending to the other collections by lantern light. On 

 several occasions we were startled by one of these Great Shear- 

 waters dashing into our midst, like some great white moth 

 dazzled by the light ; fortunately none of them ever struck us, 

 or we might have had the worst of the encounter. These birds 

 are evidently the " Cormorants " alluded^ by Mr. Knight in his 

 * Cruise of the Alerte,' p. 85. He writes : " The Cormorants 

 dwelt with their families in fine stone houses, which they had 

 constructed with great ingenuity. Some of the stones were 

 large and heavy ; it would be interesting to observe how the 

 birds set to work to move them, and how they put the roof on. I 

 have been. told that they rake up a mound of stones with their 

 powerful wings, in such a way that by removing some of those 

 underneath, they leave the roof above them." Of course, this is 

 obviously impossible, some of the stones being a great weight ; 

 the fact is, that these little stone huts are put up all over the top 

 of the island by the Portuguese fishermen for the birds to nest 

 in, so that the young may be more easily obtained when they 

 visit the place in autumn. This is commonly done also in the 

 Canaries. 



The only other bird of this genus, so far as we ascertained, 

 that visit these islands is Gould's Little Shearwater (Puffinus 

 assimilis), the same species that we found breeding at Porto Santo. 

 Here also we procured young in various stages, and one late egg 

 almost fresh ; it is large for the size of the bird, and the shell is 

 pure white, and perfectly oval in shape, the two poles being 

 equally rounded. We never saw much of these birds, though 

 one flew into the camp one night ; but during the daytime there 

 were generally some to be seen at sea, often in company with the 



