PUKFINUS. 363 



fishniorifier's shops of Melbourne, Ilobart, and Launceston. I have on several occasions seen 

 them in the old Sydney Markets, but they were doubtless obtained from Melbourne. At Phillip 

 Island in Western Port Bay, \'ictoria, these birds having cleaned out or prepared new burrows 

 some time previously, arrive usually on the evening of the 24th November, to deposit a single 

 egg at the end of a burrow, averaging from six feet in length. Early on the morning 

 of the 25th the males take their departure, walking along what is soon a well beaten tracl< or 

 "pad" to the edge of the cliff, tumlile over, and launch themselves with the air, for they cannot 

 rise direct from the ground. All that day and for many days after, the fishermen of Western 

 Port Bay, professional "eggers" from Melbourne and elsewhere, naturalists, amateurs and 

 sight-seers, are busy trying to dislodge the females off their entire possession, a pure lustreless 

 white egg, generally with the aid of a stick to which is tied at the end a curled loop of fencing- 

 wire. During my visit there in 1883, ten experienced fishermen took no less than sixty dozen 

 eggs in one day. Snakes abound on the island, and occasionally one is drawn forth from a 

 burrow and quickly dispatched, principally the Black Snake ( Psciidcchis poi'p/iyrinats) and the 

 Copper-head. 



To a novice it is no easy task to extract the egg from under the sitting female, for she bites at 

 the stick, struggles and fights for possession of her egg all the way up. One, however, soon 

 gets used to it, the main thing an experienced "egger" does, once he has got the egg away 

 from the female, is to rapidly draw it out of the burrow. Notwithstanding the great number 

 of birds and eggs taken annually, there seems to be no diminution, and the birds resort to the 

 same place to burrow regularly year after year. 



In Victoria the strongliold of the Short-tailed Petrel or " I\Iutton-bird" is the southern 

 shore of Phillip Island, in Western Port Bay, washed by Bass Strait. The principal colony is 

 at Cape Woolomai at the south-eastern corner of the island, smaller colonies occurring at 

 intervals along the coast where the soil is soft enough for the birds to make their burrows. After 

 an interval of many years, I spent a week on Phillip Island, at the latter end of November, 191 1, 

 in company with Messrs. Joseph and Vivian Gabriel, of whom the former knew the district well. 

 We were located midway between Rhyll jetty and the "back" or ocean iieach and about two 

 miles distant from a small colony situated principally in the sand hummocks overgrown more or 

 less with bushes about one hundred yards from the beach. The burrows, which mostly faced 

 the beach, averaged about three or four yards apart and six feet in length. On the 24th 

 November, in company with Mr. Frank Denne, an old resident of the island, we visited the place 

 and as anticipated found very few birds in the burrows and no eggs, but took the opportunity 

 of carefully examining several of the snapping, snarling birds for the purpose of comparison and 

 recording the colours of the bill, legs, feet, and iris. After this was done the birds were restored 

 to their burrows; some objected to return and scuttled away among the low bushes where they 

 sought refuge by hiding in some other burrow, many of which had the entrance hidden by a 

 thick layer of "Pig's-face" (Mesciiihryantlicmiun ). Many of the burrows examined that day 

 had the latter plant more or less covered with sand, evidence that the bird who had frequented 

 it the previous night had been raking it with the intention of soon occupying it. I forgot to 

 mention that on these hummocks, in addition to the indigenous plants and bushes, and especially 

 on the hills Marram-grass had been planted in rows to prevent the encroachment of the sand on 

 the adjacent grass-lands occupied by sheep. On the same evening we again visited this colony 

 to watch the birds come in from the sea and occupy the burrows. Stationing ourselves on the 

 forepart of the hummocks facing the beach, we eagerly scanned the surface of the water, until it 

 grew dusk, and yet again until it was almost dark-. Precisely at 7-45 p.m. the first bird passed 

 over our heads, and between the light emitted from the narrow crescent of a new moon; in less 

 than half a minute another appeared, in a few seconds two more, then others flying with noiseless 

 flight and emitting no sound, here, there and everywhere. At S p.m. the main body of the birds 



