MANX SHEARWATER 265 
island, having often heard, from vague reports, that it was 
unable (from its produce) to support any living creatures, 
except rabbits and puffins; but I found it abounding in 
sweet pasturage; that the surface of the ground in general 
consisted of a very fine turf intermixed with some spatches 
of short heath, or ling, and some (it is true) of barren rocks. 
I asked the old man, why they had no sheep upon the 
island, as the pasturage seemed admirably adapted for that 
valuable, profitable stock. He answered, that sheep were 
so handy to carry off, and had been so frequently stolen by 
sea-faring plunderers, that it was thought advisable to 
pasture the island with young stock of the cow-kind; of 
which I saw several grazing about.’ Townley went round the 
greater part of the Calf both by land and sea, and proceeds 
to describe the Burrow and Eye, the Stack, the Sound, and 
the Cow (Cow Harbour). ‘The rabbits upon the island, 
he remarks, ‘(according to the old man’s information) have 
formerly made a hundred and forty pounds per annum; 
puffins,’ and the feathers of the sea-birds, about half that 
sum ; but the profits on both these articles have diminished, 
since the rats have got such a footing in the place.’ 
Robertson (1794), whether from personal observation we 
do not know, mentions the species as breeding only at the 
Calf on the rocks. Feltham (1798), though he notes at the 
Calf the ‘Razor-bill (Alca torda),” and the ‘Puffin (Alca 
artica) ’ (sic), says nothing of the Shearwater. Woods (1811) 
states that rats, escaping from a wrecked Russian merchant 
vessel, ‘some years ago’ almost exterminated the Puffins ; 
he confuses ‘ puffins’ and ‘ sea-parrots,’ and his visit to the 
Calf was too late in the year (September) for him to see the 
various birds at their breeding places. Sir William Jardine 
1 By ‘ Puffin,’ Townley, like previous authorities, doubtless means Shearwater. 
Although Fratercula arctica existed on the Calf, and was also eaten (see above, 
and under article ‘ Puffin’), he mentions it under the name of ‘ Parrot’ and ‘Sea- 
Parrot.’ 
