THE GREAT SHEARWATER. 429 



white tips when fresh ; inner webs of primaries and secondaries 

 darker, being pale brown instead of white basally. Several Nov. 

 birds were just completing a full moult and one in March had some 

 body-moult. 



Measurements and structure. — $ wing 177-190 mm., tail 71-82, 

 tarsus 36-38, middle toe with claw 39.5-44, bill from feathers 

 24-26.5 (8 measured). $ wing 180-190, bill 24-28. 

 Breeding-habits. — Boyd Alexander found it breeding in holes in 

 ground and also under boulders and in cleft of rock and in one case 

 under floor-boards of deserted hut. Nest. — Occasionally of dry 

 grass. Egg. — One only, white, no gloss, very similar to that of 

 Madeiran Little Shearwater. Breeding -sea son. — Eggs taken in 

 March on Rombos. Incubation. — No details available. 



Food. — No definite information. 



Distribution. — England. — Two. Female picked up Pevensey 



(Sussex), Dec. 4th, 1914. Female caught West St. Leonards (Sussex), 



Jan. 2nd, 1915 (ut supra). 



Distribution — Abroad. — Known only from the Cape Verde 



Islands. 



[Note. — A specimen of P. a. Vherminieri in the Brit. Mus. coll. ex Gould, 

 coll. is said by Whiteley to have been killed in Devonshire but there is no 

 confirmation of this (see Saunders, p. 744 and Brit. B., ix, p. 203).] 



PUFFINUS GRAVIS 



341. Puffinus gravis (O'Reilly)— THE GREAT SHEARWATER. 



Procellaria Gravis O'Reilly, Greenland, adjacent seas, etc., p. 140, 

 pi. 12, fig. 1 (1818 — Cape Farewell and Staten Hook to Newfoundland). 

 Puffinus major Faber, Prodr. isl. Orn., p. 56 (1822 — Nomen nudum.); 

 Temminck, Man. d'Orn., sec. ed., iv, p. 507 (1840 — 1st descr. Said to 

 nest in millions in Newfoundland and to stray to northern coasts of 

 Europe, Iceland, England. Name ex Faber. Newfoundland error. 

 Terra typica should be Iceland, ex Faber.) 



Puffinus major F. Faber, Yarrell, iv, p. 12 ; P. gravis (O'Reilly), Saunders, 

 p. 737. 



Description. — Adult male and female. Winter and summer. — 

 Fore -head and crown dark sooty -brown ; centre of nape and hind- 

 neck paler ; rest of upper-parts black-brown, feathers with broad 

 sooty-brown edges paler and greyish on scapulars and all becoming 

 paler when worn ; lower upper tail-coverts with long white or 

 whitish tips and fringes and rest of feather with varying amount 

 of brown and tips usually with some brown mottling or incomplete 

 bars ; lores and ear-coverts as crown but round anterior margin of 

 eye some feathers partially white making a mottled spot ; under- 

 pays white which extends backwards in centre of throat to sides 

 of nape, feathers adjoining brown of centre of nape being tipped or 

 lightly barred brown ; feathers of centre of lower-breast and belly 

 and sometimes most of vent broadly tipped sooty-brown making a 

 somewhat mottled long dirty brown patch ; varying number of 



