REV. H. A. MACPHERbON ON THE MANX SHEARWATER. 
from which he described (in the fourth edition of Yarrell) the 
supjDosed first plumage of Pupnm anglorum, belongs to some 
other, and perhaps undescribed, species. 
Mr. Dresser states in the ‘Birds of Europe’ (vol. viii. p. 518) 
tliat the young Manx Shearwater in first plumage “ resembles the 
adult, hut is rather browner in tinge, and the crism and flanks are 
washed with brown.” Now this description agrees with my 
specimens of young in first plumage from Eigg and Skomer. The 
two first I have lately given to the National Museum and to 
Mr. Howard Sounders, but the three exactly agreed, all being 
white-breasted. But the Malaga bird has the abdomen “ brown, 
and the “ throat and breast are mottled with brownish grey.” 
Mr. Hart, of Christchurch, has a (British-killed) brown- 
breasted Shearwater and the Eev. A. Murray Mathew wrote to 
me that on one occasion he shot several of these brown-breasted 
birds in English waters. It is clear, at any rate, that the young 
of the race of Pvffiniis anglorum that nests in the British Isles 
are white-breasted. I believe Puffinus anglorum to be rather 
larger than the dusky or brown-breasted bird.'^ 
(4) Although the late Mr. Eobert Gray believed that the 
jManx Shearwater had numerous breeding stations on the Hebridean 
coast, he admitted to me that he could only name five stations as 
recently occupied, including Eum, Eigg, and the St. Ivilda group. 
I believe, myself, that the Manx Shearwater’s gregarious habits 
are calculated to lead us to exaggerate its numbers. Tourists may 
see several hundred birds within an area of four or five miles, 
but they may with far greater ease steam a whole day and 
see no Shearwaters at all. 
I think, however, that we sliall find smaller colonies than those 
alluded to, on the west coast of Skye and elsewhere. 
In 1886 a few pairs (perhaps half a dozen) of the Eigg 
Shearwaters excavated burrows in the sea cliff immediately above 
the beach near Cleardale, and close to the sea. I received three eggs 
*The late Mr. Gatcombc gave my father one of these browu-brcastecl 
Shearwaters, shot at Bigbury in Devonshire in the autumn of 1875. 
It is a large bird, its measurements somewhat e.xceeding a normal 
Manx Shearwater. Its breast is quite a sooty colour, almost as dark as the 
back. Another received from Mr. Gatcombe is similar, but not so 
dark. — J. H. G., Jun. 
