LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 49 



Land and on islands near it (Stillwell and Haswell Islands). 

 Breeding records for islands off the coasts of Chile and Patagonia 

 are probably erroneous. 



Range. — Southern oceans and Antarctic seas, mainly between 30° 

 and 70° south, and circumpolar. Eanging north in the Atlantic 

 Ocean to Saint Helena Island and in the Pacific Ocean as far north 

 as Peru (Mazorca Island). South in Weddell Sea to 71° 22' South; 

 also to the edge of the pack ice on the Antarctic lands. 



Casual records. — Accidenial off the west coast of Mexico (Mazat- 

 lan) and off the coast of Oregon (Audubon's record). 



Egg dates. — Adelie Land : December 1 to 31, 



DAPTION CAPENSE (Linnaeus). 

 PINTADO PETREL. 



HABITS. 



The pintado petrel or cape pigeon, as it is called by the sailors, is 

 a familiar bird to everyone who has navigated the southern oceans^ 

 where it is one of the most widely distributed and most abundant 

 species of all the Tuhinares. Both of its names are appropriate, 

 pintado because of the striking color pattern with which it is painted 

 and pigeon because of its resemblance in appearance and behavior to 

 our familiar domestic fowl. Sir Walter Buller (1888) gives us the 

 following vivid picture of this bird on the wing : 



I do not know any more pretty sight than to wutch the cape pigeons on tlie 

 wing. They move about with such absolute command of wing, presenting to 

 the observer alternately their snow-white breast and thgn their prettily marked 

 upper surface, the whole set off by their sooty black head and neck, that they 

 look like large painted moths hovering in the air. The eye never tires of fal- 

 lowing them and noting their ever-varying evolutions, all performed with the 

 utmost ease and gracefulness. Unlike the albatrosses and other sea birds wliieh 

 exhibit a considerable amount of individual variation, one is struck witli the 

 wonderful uniformity in the plumage of these birds. All have the same 

 freckled and spotted back and rump, and the same broad splash of white on the 

 upper surface of each wing. There is no transition plumage from the young 

 to the adult states, and no difference observable between the sexes. 



Nesting, — Mr. W. Eagle Clarke (1906) seems to have given us the 

 Lest account of the breeding habits of this species, as follows : 



.Although the cape .petrel or "cape pigeon" is one of the most familiar birds 

 ■ to voyagers. in the southern oceans, and tone, too, that has been kuown since the 

 diiys of Dampier (that is to say, ssince the closing years of the 17tla 'ceaitury), 

 yet the eggs remained entirely unknown until December 2, 1903, when Dr. 

 Pirie took the first specimens at the South Orkneys. 



The three nests from which eggs were then obtained were placed on open 

 .exposed ledges of cliffs on the west side of Uruguay Cove, Laurie I., at heights 

 of from twenty to a Imndred feet above sea level. The nests were composed of 

 a few small angular fragments of rock and a little earth, and contained singlp 



