410 
LARIDiE. 
not is uncertain the same author, in his ‘ History of the 
county of Cork* (1749), remarks, “it is not certain whether they 
breed with us, although they are frequent on our coasts.” Rutty, 
in his ‘ Natural History of the county of Dublin * (1772), merely 
states that “ it has been frequently seen on these coasts.” 
What I know of this petrel of late years, beginning with the 
north, is, that specimens shot in April and May 1839, at Port- 
rush, near the Giant's Causeway, are in the Ordnance Museum, 
and that in the month of October, that year, an individual was 
found dead, inland, near Belfast. In October 1849, a communi- 
cation from the Rev. G. M. Black, of Annalong, at the sea-base 
of the mountains of Mourne, informed me, that “ Manx petrels 
appear on this coast from the middle of July till October, and are 
very much on the wing. Their flight is easy and graceful, rising 
ten or twenty yards above the water, and then again skimming its 
surface. It is very different from the straight and laboured 
flight of the guillemot, razorbill, or puffin. I have never remarked 
more than eight or ten of them together, and seldom so many, 
but altogether they are in considerable numbers. They are vul- 
garly called “ mackerel cocks ” (a name applied to others of the 
puffin tribe),* as arriving on the coast shortly before the annual 
shoal of that fish, and are looked on by fishermen as its precursors. 
Their appearance is consequently welcomed by them.” Purtlier 
questioning my correspondent on this subject, he replied that 
there is no doubt whatever as to the species, as he had frequent 
opportunities of observing the birds on wing within fifteen or 
twenty yards, when mackerel-fishing in a small pleasure-boat during 
summer ; he very seldom saw them swimming. As they never 
come ashore, they could be observed only at sea. Their plumage 
and mode of flight, he adds, are quite distinct from those of any 
of the Alcida, their wings are much longer, and their “ beat ” 
slower. The first bird seen by Mr. Black in the season of 1850 
was on the 8th of July, but men who had been mackerel-fishing 
in the channel— far out at sea — stated that they had observed 
* Mr. Austin states that the Sterna hirundo is called mackerel gull on the cofist 
of Waterford and Wexford (‘ Ann. Nat. Hist.’ vol. ix. p. 435). 
