LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAjST PETRELS A:MD PELICAlSrS. 49 



Land and on islands near it (Still well and Haswell Islands). 

 Breeding records for islands olf the coasts of Chile and Patagonia 

 are probably erroneous. 



Range. — Southern oceans and Antarctic seas, mainly between 30° 

 and 70° south, and circnmpolar. hanging north in the Atlantic 

 Ocean to Saint Helena Island and in the Paiific Ocean as far north 

 as Peru (Mazorca Island). South in Weddell Sea to 71° 22' South; 

 also to the edge of the pack ice on the Antarctic lands. 



Casual records. — Accidental oil the west coast of Mexico (Mazat- 

 Ian) and off the coast of Oregon (Audubon's record). 



Egg dates. — Adelie Land : December 1 to 31. 



DAPTION CAPENSE (Linn.aciis). 

 PINTADO PETREL. 



HABITS. 



The pintado petrel or cape pigeon, as it is called by the sailors, is 

 a familiar bird to everj^one who has naA'igated the southern oceans, 

 where it is one of the most widely distributed and most abundant 

 species of all the Tiibinares. Both of its names are appropriate, 

 pintado because of the striking color pattern with wdiich it is painted 

 and pigeon because of its resemblance in appearance and behavior to 

 our familiar domestic fowl. Sir Walter Buller (1888) gives us the 

 following vivid picture of this bird on the wing : 



I do not know any more pretty siglit tlian to watch the cape pigeons on the 

 wing. They move about with such absolute command, of wing, presenting to 

 the observer alternately their snow-white breast and then their prettily marked 

 upper surface, the whole set off by their sooty black head and neck, that tlicy 

 look like large painted moths hovering in the air. The eye never tires of fol- 

 lowing them and noting their ever-vaiying evolutions, all performed with the 

 utmost ease and gracefulness. Unlil^e the albatrosses and other sea birds which 

 exhibit a considerable amount of individual variation, one is struck witli the 

 wonderful uniformity in the plumage of these birds. All have the same 

 freckled and spotted back and rump, and the same broad splash of white on the 

 upper surface of each wing. Tliere is no transition plumage from the young 

 to the adult states, and no difference observable between the sexes. 



Nesting. — Mr. W. Eagle Clarke (1906) seems to have given us the 

 best account of the breeding habits of this species, as follows : 



Although the cape petrel or "cape pigeon" is one of the most familiar birds 

 to voyagers in the southern oceans, and one, too, that has been known since the 

 'days of Dampier (that is to say, since the closing years of the 17th century), 

 -yet th« eggs remained entirely unknown vintil December 2, 190.S, when Dr. 

 ;Pirie tooktlie flpst specimens at the South Orkneys. 



•T?b.e three ne^ts from which eggs were then obtained were placed on open 

 .exposed ledges of cliffs on the w^st side of Uruguay Cove, Laurie I., at heights 

 of from twenty to a hundred feet above sea level. The nests were composed of 

 ^a few small angular fragments of rock and a little earth, and contninod single 



