36G 
LAllID.E. 
bird will keep to tlie nest until long after it is fully fledged, 
and in such circumstances becomes enormously fat, and is 
thought a dainty by the fishermen, who eat it with much 
relish. 
Eggs of the common barn-door fowl are often passed off as 
those of the Manx Shearwater, and even an experienced eye 
will sometimes be deceived. Intending purchasers should 
select specimens which have the shell thin, smooth, per- 
fectly white, and of extremely fine texture, and the ends 
should be without wrinkles or rough spots. The well-known 
musky smell and the pale yeUow yolk render it easy to 
identify the egg when fresh. The average measurement is 
about two inches and five lines by one inch and eight lines. 
In handling the Shearwater, one need be very cautious, as 
it has the habit of ejecting from the mouth a cpiantity of clear 
thin oil, — fishy and disagreeable enough, it is true, but by no 
means the abominably offensive stuff described by authors. 
On several occasions I have found in the stomach of this bird 
the jaws of a small species of cuttle-fish, vouched for as such by 
]\Ir Gwyn Jeffreys himself, together with a small quantity 
of comminuted sea-weed, and some green vegetable fibre. 
The cuttle-fish jaws have been found by me also in the stomach 
of the Fulmar Petrel. 
THE DUSKY PETEEL. 
Puffinus ohsciirus, 
[In the author’s copy of the printed list referred to on p. 329, 
the mark denoting that the bird was first observed in Shetland 
by him is found against this species, accomj)anied, however, by 
a (?). Mr Thomas Edmondston teUs me his impression is, that 
my brother “ saw a bird, evidently of the Petrel family, which 
lie was unable to identify, and noted down his observations 
about it, hoping to elucidate something further at a future 
date.” Unable to find any allusion to such a bird in the MSS., 
