PUFFINUS 371 



Only one egg is laid for a sitting. Typically they are elongate-oval in form, or an ellipse 

 slightly narrowed at one end, and they range from swollen oval and ellipses to a very elongate 

 oval ; the shell is comparatively close-grained, and of a pure lustreless white. Two eggs in the 

 Australian Museum Collection, taken by the late Mr. George Masters on the 7th September, 

 1868, on Breaksea Island, lying off the South-western Australian coast, measure ; — Length (A) 

 2'53 X 1-62 inches; (B) 2-8 x 173 inches. Four specimens taken by Mr. W. Whiting on 

 Lord llowe Island in November, 191 1, measure: — Length (A) 2-67 x 1-82 inches; (B) 271 x 

 1-82 inches; (C) 2-6 x 178 inches; (D) 2-83 x 176 inches. Seven specimens taken on 

 Breaksea Island daring December measure:— Length (A) 275 x 1-84 inches; (B) 273 x 1-83 

 inches; {0)2-52 x 1-87 inches; (D) 27 x r8i inches; (E) 2-64 x 178 inches; (F) 2-93 x 

 1-83 inches; (0)2-59 x 1-65 inches. 



Young birds resemble the adults, but are more or less covered with greyish-brown down 

 on the head, neck, mantle, back and rump, and longer brownish-grey down on the centre of the 

 breast and feathers. Wing 10-25 inches. 



At Lord Howe Island the birds commence to dig out the burrows, or clean out the old ones, 

 usually in early September or October, the eggs being deposited at the latter end of November, 

 and the young birds leave the burrows and depart with the adults early in May. 



On Breaksea Island, off the South-western Australian coast, the time of breeding is almost 

 similar, but eggs are deposited in December as well as November. 



PufTlnus assimilis. 



ALLIED PETIIEL. 



Piiffitms assimilis, Gould, Proo. Zool. Soc, 1837, p. 1.56; iil., Bds. Austr., fol. Vol. VII., pi. 59 

 (1848); Salvin, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mas., Vol. XXV., p. 384 (1896); Sharpe, Hand-1. Bds., 

 Vol. 1., p. 124 (1899). 



Pnffinns itugax, Gould, Handbk. lids. Austr., Vol. II., p. 4.58 (1865). 



Adult male. — General colour above including the wings and tlie tail dark slaty-hlack, the fore- 

 head and croivn of the head, the upper wing-coverts and scapulars being of a sootij-black hue: lores, 

 feathers below and above the posterior portion of the eye, and sides of the neck ivhile, the feathers on 

 the latter also the sides of the foreneck, tnottled ?mth slaty-grey : all the under surface, the axillaries, 

 under wing and tail-coverts ptire white. Total length 11 inches, wing 7-4, tail 'J-7, bill 1, tarsus l-^o. 



Adult female — Similar in plumage to the male. 



Distribution. — Western Australian Seas, New Zealand, Norfolk Island. 



/'(FV OULD originally described the type of the present species in the " Proceedings of the 

 V_-< Zoological Society of London," in 1837, and subsequently figured it in his folio edition 

 of the "Birds of .'Australia," in 1848. In his "Handbook of the Birds of Australia," he 

 wrote :— " .All the specimens of this species that I have seen were procured on Norfolk Island, 

 where it is said to breed, consequently the seas washing the eastern shores of Australia may be 

 considered its natural habitat ; it is evidently the representative of the Puffinus obsaivus of Europe. 

 On my homeward voyage from Australia I saw numerous e.xamples flying ofif the north-eastern 

 end of New Zealand, and this, I ought to say, is all the information I have to communicate 

 respecting it." 



My experience of this species is somewhat similar to Gould's, all the adult skins and eggs I 

 have seen were received from the late Dr. P. H. Metcalfe, of Norfolk Island. With over 

 a quarter of a century's residence near the eastern shores of New South Wales, I have never 

 observed it in any part of the Eastern .Australian seas, nor have I seen a specimen in any 



