In the classical Greek period, 2,500 years ago, two seabirds had already given rise to immortal legends in the eastern Mediterranean. The Siren was reputed to lure seafarers to their doom by singing upon outlying rocks, a habit found in a variety of marine animals, but particularly characteristic of petrels on misty nights. The larger species of the area in particular, once known as the Mediterranean Shearwater and now as Cory's Shearwater, which still bears the local vernacular name Diomedee and scientific name Calonectris diomedea in memory of one of the Greeks who besieged Troy (Winthrope 1973), has a voice very like a foghorn. In contrast, the Halcyon was equally celebrated because it was never seen ashore, and thought to reproduce upon the surface of the sea in calm weather, which was named after it. This seems equally characteristic of a smaller species, long known as the Levantine Shearwater Puffinusyelkouan until it was reclassified early in this century as a race of the Manx Shearwater P. puffinus yelkouan, since it does not fly so well, and is prone to settle in flocks on the water far from its island breeding-places when the wind falls.