PUKFINUS. 359 



been captured at 9 p.m. at night, by striking the telegraph wires in the most brilhantly lighted 

 quarter of O.xford Street, and about three hundred yards south of the Australian Museum. In 

 a direct line, as the crow flies, this part of Sydney would be about si.\ miles from the coast. 

 When at l^ulli in 1895, the late Dr. Clifton Sturt gave nie a Wedge-tailed Petrel which he had 

 picked up after striking a wire fence on the W'ollongong Koad. in October and November, 

 1895, when the mortality amongst the Petrels was so great, I picked up numerous dead examples 

 on the sea beaches at Bulli and Woonona ; but this species was then comparatively rare to the 

 vast numbers of dying or dead Short-faced Petrels ( i'uffiniii li-jiiiiivstris). 



Mr. /\. R. McCulloch has handed me the following note relating to this species: — "In 

 October, 1904, we found the burrows of the Mutton Birds ( Pnffinus chloi'oi'hynclins) were common 

 enough in the soft sand on Masthead Island, about thirty miles east of Port Curtis, Queensland, 

 indeed, one needed to walk carefully in parts to a\oid sinking up to one's knees in them. None 

 of the nesting places we e.\amined contained eggs, though the old birds were sitting in some, as 

 we learnt by the savage pecks received when incautiously inserting our hands and arms into 

 them. Soon after sun-down they would leave the nesting places, and run towards the sloping 

 beach, the only place from which they could take flight, and we found several tracks through 

 the grass formed by their regular passage in the one direction. Our camp was pitched over one 

 of these tracks, and we were more than a little surprised, the first evening, by a number of birds 

 running up against the tent, and flapping noisily on its sides; their surprise was as great as 

 ours, and they seemed to have no idea of turning aside, but leapt helplessly up against it until 

 their floundering carried them to one side of it. On another occasion several ran right across 

 the hre which was placed near the beach." 



Visiting the same island during the last week of November, 1913, Mr. McCulloch remarks :— 

 " We often heard these birds digging their burrows around our tent, and they seemed to work 

 very quickly, but when approached with a light they would leave off, and, after getting over 

 their first astonishment, would make off through the bushes to the beach. We opened up 

 several burrows which were about five feet long, found no eggs, but we had not the opportunity 

 of examining many properly." 



Mr. Thos. P. Austin, wrote me from Cobborah Station, Cobbora New South Wales, January 

 i8th, igii : — " While in the Port Stepens district during the first week of December, 1910, I 

 had excellent opportunities of seeing Puffinns cliloi-oi-liynckiis nesting. Upon every island outside 

 the Heads I found these birds were known to breed. On Big Island, the top of which is of a 

 sandy soil, covered with rough grass, I found them breeding in thousands. The whole of the 

 top of the island was just like one great rabbit warren, then there were hundreds which had 

 deposited their eggs upon the surface of the ground, beneath bushes and grass, and many others 

 on the side of the island were to be seen far out of reach beneath rocks. The flight of this 

 species is very rapid, in this I was very interested, and took a keen delight in throwing them 

 over the precipitous cliffs. When over, they would swoop straight down, some hundreds of 

 feet, to all appearance within a few feet of the water, when they would take one rapid turn, and 

 skim away over the waves, and be out of sight in a wonderfully short space of time. Then 

 take one from a nest, and place it upon dry land, when it is difficult to believe it is the same 

 species of bird. They have a most extraordinary gait, waddling along as though they were 

 very foot sore, and trying to assist themselves with their wings. When handling them it 

 is certainly advisable to do so with a good thick pair of gloves on, because they can bite very 

 severely, the point of their hooked bill is a very formidable weapon of defence. Sometimes, 

 when I took a bird from its nest, it would waddle into the burrow in which another was sitting, 

 when there would be a few angry cries, and the intruder suddenly bundled out." 



From Norfolk Island, Dr. P. H. Metcalfe sent me the following note:— "The Wedge-tailed 

 Petrel (Putfinus sphcnunisj, lays its solitary egg sometimes at the end of a long burrow, or on a 



