MANX SHEARWATER 
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added, and we fail to get anything that looks like an 
account by a person who had visited its breeding place and 
observed the birds. Bishop Wilson says that young were 
ready to fly about the 15th August; that they were then 
' hunted/ and great numbers, few years less than four 
thousand or five thousand, taken. They were, he adds, 
almost one lump of fat. ' They who will be at the expense 
of wine, spice, and other ingredients, to pickle them, make 
them very grateful to many palates, and send them abroad ; 
but the greatest parts are consumed at home, coming at a 
very proper time for the husbandman in harvest.' 1 
In the account of ' The profits of the Calve Island this 
year' (1708) is included 'the Puffins of ye s d Isle this year 
being 2618 birds at Id., 13: 05: 06 ' {Manx Note-Book, No. 8, 
p. 190). John Quayle, C.R., in his formerly quoted letter 
to his brother-in-law, James Moore (1776), says: 'The 
other day I sent you a Kegg of Puffins. ... I hope ere 
this comes to hand that you have received and tried the 
Puffins.' 
Pennant (1776) Brit. Zool, ii. p. 551, tells us: 'These 
birds are found in the Calf of Man ; and as Mr. Bay 
supposes in the Scilly isles ; they resort to the former in 
February ; take a short possession of the rabbit burrows, 
and then disappear till April ; they lay one egg, white and 
blunt at each end, and the young are fit to be taken the 
beginning of August ; when great numbers are killed by the 
person who farms the isle ; they are salted and barrelled, 
and when they are boiled are eaten with potatoes. During 
the day they keep at sea fishing; and towards evening 
return to their young ; whom they feed, by discharging the 
contents of their stomachs into their mouths ; which by 
1 Mr. W. A. Stevenson tells me that the Puffins of the Calf are said to have 
been regularly tithed for the benefit of the Church, and a certain rock at the 
Sound, where the division was made, is still pointed out. 
