110 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



drawn out from its home. The chase is ordinarily continued all the morning, 

 which can not be done without traveling far from the cabin and ascending and 

 descending very difficult places. I sent the negroes to the distant localities 

 and kept the creole with me to hunt in the neighborhood of the hut. He knew 

 the business perfectly well, and he had a very good dog. After two or three 

 hours of hunting I returned with my negro to rest and to cook some birds for 

 dinner. I began finally to hunt alone. We reassembled at midday. The four 

 negroes had 138 diublotins, Albert hud 43, and I 17. Each of us ate two, and 

 we left carrying the rest of our game. 



On Sunday, April 8, 1696, M. Labat started out to make an ascent of the 

 Soufriere. That night, at a camp much farther on than the previous one, half 

 the party erected a hut, while the other half hunted diablotins, for supper and 

 for food on the following day. 



Those who read these memoirs will doubtless be sui'prised that we should eat 

 birds in Lent ; but the missionaries who are in these islands, and who in many 

 matters exercise the power of bishops, after serious deliberation and a consulta- 

 tion of medical men, have declared that lizards and diablotins are vegetable 

 food, and that consequently they may be eaten at all times. 



I am including the above account at the suggestion of certain 

 friends of mine in Washington in spite of some doubt in my mind as 

 to whether it refers to this species or not. Inasmuch as Pere Labat 

 describes the " diablotin " as black, his account may refer to 

 Pterodroina carWhea^ the Jamaican petrel. But, as both species may 

 have 'formerly bred on these islands, as Pere Labat's observations 

 have always been associated with Pterodroina hasitata and as it is an 

 interesting account historically, it seems best to include it. 



The Keverend Father Jean Baptiste du Tertre (1654) says : 



The " devil " is a nocturnal bird, so named by the inhabitants of the Indies on 

 account of its ugliness. It is so rare that I have never been able to see a single 

 one except at night and on the wing. All that I have been able to learn of it 

 from hunters is that its form closely approaches that of a duck ; that it has a 

 hideous voice and mixed white and black plumage ; that it lives on the highest 

 mountains; that it breeds like the rabbit in burrows which it makes in the 

 ground in which it lays its eggs, incubates them, and raises its young; I have 

 not been able to learn with what food it nourishes them. When it appears in 

 the daytime it rushes forth so unexpectedly that it frightens those who see it. 

 It never comes down from the mountain except by night, and on the wing it 

 gives forth a very lugubrious and hideous cry. Its flesh is so delicate that no 

 hunter ever returns from the mountain who does not ardently desire to have a 

 dozen of these " devils " hanging from his neck. 



The latest information we have, on the disappearance of this 

 species, is contained in the following quotation from Mr. G. K. Noble 

 (1916) : 



One of the chief reasons of my visit to Guadeloupe was to obtain information 

 about the black-capped petrels. A few days after landing I had the good for- 

 tune to meet Monsieur C. Thionville, president of the Club des Montagnards. 

 The name diablotin was associated in his mind with the past history and early 

 colonization of the French in Guadeloupe. He innnediately began to make in- 



