1849, Mr. J. L. Hurdis visited Gurnet Rock or 'Gurnet Head Rock,' a small, precipitous, and nearly inaccessible outlying island, situated off Castle Harbor, and found there the nests of a shearwater in the crevices of the rocks. He concluded that he had found and identified the longlost cahow.

His identification has been accepted by Capt. S. G. Reid and other later writers on the ornithology of the Bermudas, apparently without any adequate consideration of the facts stated by the early writers from personal observation. It has been assumed by nearly all recent writers, though without any real evidence, that Gurnet (Head)

ANCIENT RUINED FORT a ON GURNET'S HEAD OF CASTLE ISLAND; b, WATER CISTERN, STILL HOLDING WATER; C, CATCHMENT SLOPE, BUILT OF SLABS OF LIMESTONE; d, GURNET HEAD ROCK; e, ENTRANCE TO CASTLE HARBOR.

Rock was the particular place, or at least one of the places, where the cahow bred in old times. Perhaps this may be due to the name, but it was called 'Gurnet Head Rock,' because it lies off 'Gurnet Head' on Castle Island. The latter name was in use in 1619. Some of the early writers say that it bred on some of the smaller uninhabited islands, inaccessible to the wild hogs, without designating any particular one (see Strachy's narrative). Governor Butler and the Rev. Lewis Hughes say that a boat could go to its breeding places and get a load of the bird and its eggs in a short time (see Strachy's account, above). This was apparently done only in the night. Therefore the islands visited

must have been near at hand and easily accessible, with available and safe landings, even in winter, when the eggs were sought. Gurnet Rock does not fulfill any of these conditions. It is several miles from St. George's, then the chief settlement and capital; it stands isolated outside all the other islands, so that it is exposed to the full force of the sea on all sides and in December and January the sea is always boisterous in these waters; it has no place where a boat can safely land, unless in nearly calm weather and by daylight; its sides are nearly perpendicular, exceeding rough, high cliffs, which can hardly be scaled without risk of loss of life or limbs, unless by means of ropes and ladders. Moreover the top is of very small area and almost destitute of soil. So that there is no possible chance for a bird like the cahow to burrow there. The writer, with two companions, visited this island about the first of May of this year, on a day when the sea was not very rough, and the tide was low. We found it impossible to land except by stepping out upon a narrow, slippery and treacherous reef of rotten rock and corallines, covered with sea-weeds, exposed only at low tide, and standing a little away from the shore, with deep water between. The sea was breaking over this reef, and it was difficult to wade ashore except at one place, on account of the depth of water. With the aid of a long pole I climbed partly up the side of the rock, at the only available place, and though I did not reach the summit, I could, from my highest position, see that there is no soil on the top, but only a few seaside shrubs and herbaceous plants, growing from crevices of the rock. This was sufficient to convince me that the cahow never bred on this rock, and, if it had, the early settlers would never have gone there in the winter and at night to get the eggs or birds.

It is far more probable that one of its breeding places was on Goat Island, which is a larger, uninhabited island about half a mile inside of Gurnet Rock, and with a beach of shell-sand on the inner side, where boats can safely land. Moreover on this island, in early times, there was a deep deposit of sand and soil, which was subsequently used as a burial place for soldiers who died in the old fortifications on this and the adjacent Castle Island and Southampton Island. Indeed we found two ancient human skeletons partly exposed in this bank of sand, where it had been recently undermined by the sea. Evidently a large amount of this sandy deposit, which contains fossil land snails, has been washed away since the time when the old 'Charles Fort' was built upon this island, about 1615. This old ruined fort was of small size and apparently has been abandoned since about 1630. It has the same size and form shown on Norwood's chart, published in 1626. Norwood mentions, in 1663, that it had then 'fallen into decay.' Probably the cahow may have bred also on Castle Island, which is a larger island a short distance inside Goat Island, and on Southampton Island,

GURNET'S HEAD OF CASTLE ISLAND, SHOWING PROFILE AT a; b, SOUTHAMPTON ISLAND AND RUINS OF THE FORT, BUILT BOUT 1620; c, ENTRANCE TO CASTLE HARBOR.

a little farther west. But these and other adjacent islands, including Cooper's Island, were fortified between 1612 and 1620, and it is probable that their occupation, at that time and later, was one of the causes of the rapid extermination of the cahow and egg-birds. We endeavored to secure some bones of the cahow by digging in the rubbish heaps about the old forts on Castle Island, but though we found numerous bones of fishes, hogs, etc., and a few of birds, none appear to belong to the cahow. But probably the deposits that we excavated were of later date, for the Castle Island forts were again garrisoned during the war of 1812. We found old silver and brass military buttons, gun flints and the cores of flint nodules, from which they had been chipped, with many other old relics, but nothing to indicate the first period of occupation, from 1614 to 1625, when alone the cahow might have formed a part of the rations.

In the 'Plain and True Relation' by the Rev. Lewis Hughes, 1621, there is a graphic account of the famine of 1615, from which the following extract is taken:

"The first night that I lay in the Iland, which you call Coopers Iland (whither the lazie starving crewe were sent, and with them some honest industrious persons, though then much out of heart, and now living, and well, thanks unto God) when I saw in every Cabbin Pots and kettles full of birds boyling, and some on spits rosting, and the silly wilde birds comming so tame into my cabbin and goe so familiarly betweene my feet, and round about the cabbin, and into the fire, with a strange lamentable noyse, as though they did bemoan us, and bid us take, kill, roast, and eate them: I was much amazed, and at length said within myselfe, surely the tameness of these wilde birds, and their offring of themselves to be taken, is a manifest token of the goodnesse of God even of his love, his care, his mercy and power working together, to save this people from starving. Mr. Moore then Governour, fearing that their overeating themselves would be their destruction, did remove them from thence to Port Royoll, where they found but little or no want; for, birds they had there also, brought to them, every weeke, from the Ilands adjoyning, whither some were sent of purpose to bird for them."

This account of the habits of the cahow would not, in the least, apply to the shearwater. It is probable, however, that the latter is identical with the nocturnal bird called 'Pimlico' by the early settlers.

The following extract from the 'Historye' by Governor Nathaniel Butler, written about 1619, relates to the famine of 1615, and shows some of the causes of the very rapid extermination of the birds:

"Whilst this Pinnace was on her way for England, scarcetie and famine every day more and more prevayleinge upon the sickly colony, caused the governour to look well about him; in the beginning of the newe yeare, therefore (1615), 150 persons, of the most ancient, sick, and weake, wer sent into Coopers Iland, ther to be relieved by the comeinge in of the sea-birds, especially the Cahowes, wher, by this half hunger-starved company, they are found in infinite numbers, and with all so tame and amazed they are, that upon the least howeteinge or noyce, they would fall downe, and light upon their shoulders VOL. LX.-2**

as they went, and leggs as they satt, suffering themselves to be caught faster than they could be killed." "Wittnesse the generall carriage and behaviour of this company, who being thus arrived and gott up to a libertie and choice of eateing as much as they would, how monstrous was it to see, how greedily everything was swallowed downe; how incredible to speake, how many dozen of thoes poore silly creatures, that even offered themselves to the slaughter, wer tumbled downe into their bottomlesse mawes: wherupon (as the sore effect of so ranck a cause, the birds with all being exceedeingly fatt) then sodenly followed a generall surfettinge, much sicknesse, and many of their deathes."

The chances of finding bones of the cahow would probably be better on Cooper's Island than elsewhere, if the above narratives of Governor Butler and Mr. Hughes were correct. That the latter referred to the cahow, though he did not mention the name of the 'silly birds,' may be properly inferred, because of the season, beginning of the newe yeare,' when the large party of starving settlers was sent there for food. The egg-birds did not arrive until the first of May. This famine and the sending of a large number of starving persons to feed on the defenceless birds, at their breeding season, was unquestionably the direct and principal cause of their rapid extermination, for it was during the very next year (1616) that the first law was passed, but overlate,' restricting the 'spoyle and havock of the cahowes.' We were unable, for lack of time, to dig for the bones of the cahow on Cooper's Island. The loose ground there is full of the holes of two species of large land crabs. Such holes may have served the cahow for nesting places.