NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 633 



of high tide among floating debris. It is rightly looked upon as 

 one of the worst and most insidious of "oyster- thieves." 



Mr. Basset Hull exhibited, on behalf of Mr. L. Harrison, a skin 

 of the Cape Petrel, Daption capensis Linn., which was captured 

 alive at Turimetta Head, Nari-abeen, on the 15th October last. 

 The bird was sitting on a ledge of rock above high water-mark, 

 and, though apparently uninjured, seemed incapable of flying. 

 It lived in captivity for nine days, on each of which it was placed 

 in a large bath of water for a couple of hours, and fed upon 

 small morsels of fat. This last was not taken solid, but was 

 macerated with the aid of its beak; and the water, with its 

 floating film of fat, greedily taken up. Gould mentions that this 

 petrel follows up ships and feeds on fatty matter thrown over- 

 board, so that it may be freely taken with a hook baited with 

 fat; but it seems improbable that solid fat is ever swallowed, as 

 a few fair-sized morsels, which were bolted by the bird at its first 

 meal, when it was very hungry, were found undigested in the 

 stomach after death. After feeding for about an hour, the bird 

 would spend almost another hour in bathing, and in preening 

 itself. While in the water, the bird floated high up, and its legs 

 hung loosely, and were turned out at an angle of 4.5° from the 

 sagittal plane. The webbed feet were worked slowly outwards, 

 the eff"ect being to keep the body practically stationary. Exposure 

 to the sun on the very hot tenth day was too much for the petrel, 

 which was found dead. Daption capeyisis does not appear in Mr. 

 North's list of the birds of County Cumberland, nor in the two 

 supplementary lists published in the Records of the Australian 

 Museum; nor does there appear to be any record of its occurrence 

 on the coast of New South Wales, though it is frequently seen 

 out at sea. Mr. Harrison also sent, for exhibition, four specimens, 

 adult and young, together with an egg-case attached to a feather, 

 of Ancistrona procellarire Westwood, the largest known mallopha- 

 gan parasite of birds, from the Daption capensis Linn., mentioned 

 above. The genus and species were described by Westwood in 

 1874, both description and figure being inadequate; and appa- 

 rently it has not since been taken from the type-host. A similar 



