North Atlantic
Voyage from Liverpool to Boston - Gulf Stream waters
1911.
August 8
(No 4)
[August 8, 1911]

Greater Shearwater
Arctic Puffin (?)

  Early in the afternoon we saw a Greater Shearwater, at first
floating on the water from which it presently rose rather
clumsily to skim off over the ocean. Later a bird on wing,
flying like a Puffin & looking to me very like one, passed
us at some distance. While I believe it to have been an Arctic Puffin
it was, unfortunately, not certainly identified. Allen, who saw it less
well than I, thought it might have been some kind of Shearwater.

P. affinis [Puffinus affinis]
Shearwaters again

  Just before breakfast this morning Dr. G. M. Allen [Glover M. Allen] had a
good view of birds which he thinks were Puffinus auduboni.
They crossed our bows about a ship's length ahead with bright
sunlight striking full on their sides. About 7 P.M. I saw
ten or a dozen of the same birds flying singly or in pairs
low over the water (about 4 or 5 feet above it). Their upper parts
including the upper surface of their wings looked inky black, their
under parts snow white. In size they appeared to be a little smaller
than many shearwaters with much shorter wings. Their flight was