450 MU. J. H. GURNEY, JUN., ON THE ISLES OF SGILLY, 
issue voluntarily from its hole in the daytime, and that when 
leaving by steamer, we saw, a few miles to the northward of the 
Scillies, several small flocks, and a gathering of seventy or eighty, 
at about 10.30 a.m. Yet a person might sit down among 
their burrows upon the island of Annet and not know of 
their existence. Their plan of only leaving and entering 
these burrows after dark is a provision of nature for greater 
security, their eggs being so much easier to obtain than the 
Eazorbill’s, or the Guillemot’s, hence these wise birds are 
careful not to draw attention to them by coming out of their 
holes in the daytime. It would take very little to extirpate a 
colony of Shearwaters such as that on Annet, and if they had 
not fortunately as warm a friend and guardian in the present 
Lord Proprietor as in the last, their days would soon be numbered. 
The recent robbery had been committed by some Tresco men, and 
Mr. Dorrien Smith speedily hafl the culprits found out and 
brought up before him. Alas ! there appeared to be a fatality on 
the poor Shearwaters in 1887, for before they had time to recover, 
a wreck took place by the Bishop Kock, and sad havoc was made of 
the island of Annet by five hundred head of cattle, which were 
saved from the ship, and landed there. They trampled everything 
to pieces, broke in all the Shearwaters’ holes, probably destroy- 
ing many birds, and made a ruin of everything (J. H. J. and 
E. D. S. in litt.y- 
The Scillonian name for the Manx Shearwater is “ Crew ; ” 
while a Puffin is called a “ Pope.” t There is so much similarity 
between the words, that we cannot but think the “ Creyser ” of 
Eichard Carew to be the Shearwater (‘ Survey of Cornwall’ [1602] 
p. 35), all the more so that at various breeding stations it has had 
names bestowed upon it beginning with the letter C, indicative of 
*On the 31st of March, 1871, there were ninety-nine Manx Shearwaters 
in Leadenhall Market, which showed by their clean plumage, and dislocated 
necks, that they had been caught in their burrows. Two of the salesmen 
said they came from Cornwall ; and, I suspect, though it was contradicted in 
the ‘ Field,’ that they had been stolen from Annet. I could not learn that 
they are ever eaten by the inhabitants of the Scilly Islands, either fresh or 
salted. 
t Harting gives a list of Cornish names of Birds from the vocabularies of 
Borlase, Pryce, and Polwhcle {l.o. p. 312), as well iis a list of provincial 
names now, or formerl}^ in use (p. 314). 
