MANX SHEARWATER 261 
know and keep an account of the number they take, they 
cut off one foot and reserve it, which gave occasion to that 
Fable that the Puffins are single-footed. They usually sell 
them for about ninepence the dozen, a very cheap rate. 
They say their flesh is permitted by the Romish Church 
to be eaten in Lent, being for the taste so like to fish... . 
‘We are told that they breed not only on the Calf of 
Man, but also on the Silly (szc) Islands. Notwithstanding 
they are sold so cheap, yet some years there is thirty pounds 
made of the young Puffins taken in the Calf of Man. 
Whence may be gathered what number of birds breed 
there.’ 
The equivalent Latin passage is as follows: ‘ Australi 
termino insulae Monae (quae in medio mari Angliam inter 
et Hiberniam sita, aequalibus fere intervallis ab Anglia, 
Scotia et Hibernia distat, perque triginta milliaria ab Austro 
in Aquilonem porrigitur) alia adjacet insulula angusto freto 
dirempta, The Calf of Man dicta, inculta prorsus aut 
duobus tribusve tantum tuguriolis nuper extructis habitata, 
cuniculis scatens, quos quotannis vere adventantes Puffini 
abigunt, inque eorum foraminibus nidificant. Ovorum 
unicum una vice pariant, quem admodum Anas Arctica, 
Alka, etc., quamvis vulgo persuasum sit, eos duo semper 
ova ponere, quorum alterum perpetuo sit infaecundum. 
Pullos exclusos mirum in modum saginant. Matres summo 
mane, quam primum illucescit, nidos et pullos ipsamque 
insulam deserunt, totumque diem in mari piscando impen- 
dunt, nec unquam ante crepusculum vespertinum redeunt, 
aut ullibi in insula pedem figunt. Quicquid piscium 
Within the next fifty years it appears that the right of the Stevensons to these 
Puffins was repeatedly questioned, and finally Governor Sankey in 1696 refused 
delivery of them. In 1704 a petition was addressed to the Lord of Man by John 
Stevenson—a curious document, which, by the courtesy of his present heir, Mr. 
W. A. Stevenson, I am enabled to reproduce at the end of this article. The 
result of the application is not known. 
