LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 95 



Strait, all will disperse for the winter over the milder waters of the Pacific, 

 some of the birds wandering even up to Japanese waters before returning in 

 crowds to Phillip Island again the following nesting season. How marvelous, 

 without a cliart or compass, to roam the western Pacific from north to south, 

 and without calendar to return to land again almost to a day to lay. 



Eggs. — Mr. Campbell (1901) describes the egg as follows: 

 " Clutch, one ; inclined to oval shape, occasionally more elliptical ; 

 texture of shell somewhat coarse; surface minutely pitted, slight 

 trace of gloss on some examples; color, pure white." 



The measurements of 40 eggs, in various collections, average 71 by 

 47 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 77.2 

 by 40.5, 73 by 51.5, 63.5 by 44, and 65.2 by 41 millimeters. The 

 period of incubation is said to be 56 days. 



Food. — Capt. William Walter (1902), of the steamship Wesfralia, 

 gives us the following account of its food habits : 



When coming out of Otago Harbor on Sunday, the 2Gth of November, some 

 of these petrels, in immense numbers, were settled on the water and feeding on 

 what is locally known as " whale feed " — small shrimplike creatures about an 

 inch long, and which at times are so numerous as to color the water for acres 

 brick-red. It was almost calm, and as we drew up to the birds a passage was 

 opened up through them as we passed. It was amusing to watch their efforts 

 to escape — many of them were so filled as to be imable to fly, and attempted 

 to escape by diving and paddling frantically away from the vessel. It was 

 noticed that many, in their efforts to escape, ejected the reddish substance 

 they had been feeding upon. They appeared to extend several miles north and 

 south of Otago Heads. 



The birds which we saw in Unimak Pass were probably feeding on 

 similar food, for w^e were told that their presence in large numbers 

 was always dependent on the abundance of w^hales. Small whales 

 were certainly plentiful at that time and the birds were probably 

 feeding on the refuse left by the whales or were chasing the same 

 kind of small marine animals. 



Behavior. — Mr. R. H. Davies (1843) describes the following method 

 of capturing these birds for their feathers in their breeding grounds 

 in Tasmania : 



The birds can not rise from the ground, but must first go into the water, in 

 effecting which they have made a great many tracks to the beach similar to 

 those of a kangaroo ; these are stopped before morning, with the exception of 

 one leading over a shelving bank, at the bottom of which is dug a pit in the 

 sand. The birds finding all avenues closed but this follow each other in such 

 number that as they fall into the pit they are immediately smothered by those 

 succeeding them. It takes the feathers of forty birds to weight one pound ; 

 consequently sixteen hundred of these birds must be sacrificed to make a feather 

 bed of forty pounds weight. The feathers, as Tasmanian travelers well can tell, 

 have a strong, disagreeable scent. 



Mr. Davies says further: 



The young birds leave the rookeries about the latter end of April or form one 

 scattered flock in Bass's Straits. I have actually sailed through them from 



