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OCEANIC BIRD LIFE 



The wedge-tailed shearwater at the entrance to its nesting burrow on a shelving coast south of 

 Sydney. The commonest species of shearwater in the tropical and subtropical parts of the Pacific, 

 it closely resembles the sooty shearwater, which breeds off New Zealand. The photograph was 

 taken at night by artificial light, just after the bird had come in from the sea. 



Leaving New Zealand waters, we made course for Hawaii, and so 

 gained a further opportunity of observing tropical and subtropical bird 

 life. To my regret I was never able to go ashore on a large tropical bird 

 island, but when we anchored for a few hours off the Kermadec Islands, 

 north of New Zealand, I succeeded, through my binoculars, in obtaining 

 a striking impression of the immense numbers of birds which breed on 

 these islands. There must have been, not thousands, but hundreds of thou- 

 sands of nesting birds, among which were four species of shearwaters, 

 two species of noddies (Anous minutus and A. cinereus), the blue-faced 

 booby (Sula dactylatra), and the red-tailed tropic-bird (Phaethon-rubri- 

 cauda). Most of the birds live on some small rocky islands a few kilo- 

 metres from the main island of the group. 



The regions of the trade winds are barren and almost birdless and for 

 days on end not a single bird will be seen. Besides locally breeding sea- 

 birds, it is possible in tropical waters to observe sea-birds from the colder 

 zones of both the northern and the southern hemisphere, either in pas- 

 sage or in their winter quarters. All four species of skuas, for example, may 

 be seen migrating here, and in a few places we observed both the pomarine 



