sea or artificial stone wall, in a chamber of previous years' construc- 

 tion, or begin the excavation of a gallery in the soft earth, from one 

 to two or rather more feet in length, enlarging the extremity and 

 lining it well with a loose mass of dried grass, leaves, or more rarely, 

 rootlets. In this saucer shaped nest, a single egg is laid. During 

 the process of burrowing and nest building, both birds remain in the 

 burrow during the daylight hours, but with the appearance of the 

 Ggg one retires to the open sea, to pass the daylight far from land, 

 returning at night to attend or relieve its mate. And during the 

 long period of incubation, one of the birds is always to be found on 

 the nest throughout the day ; both sexes share in the duties of brood- 

 ing. 



When the young bird hatches, both parents retire to the open sea, 

 coming ashore at night to attend the feeble young, which from the 

 first is clothed with long woolly down of a uniform sooty shade. 



Through the long period of adolescence, the young bird remains 

 in the burrow, where it is carefully tended at night by its sea-roving 

 parents. From the last of May well into September, while the breed- 

 ing duties are in progress, the visitor to one of these large colonies 

 throughout the daylight hours will never see a Petrel stirring. But 

 when darkness shrouds land and sea, he seems transported to an 

 ancient realm where spirits or personified forces again assume visible 

 form and hold mysterious revels until dawn. 



Here within Night's dominion in the midst of a no less funereally 

 garbed throng of flitting forms, seeming to speak most earnestly in 

 a subhuman, unknown tongue, which is answered by their encaverned 

 mates in purring tones and pleading wails, the mind may readily 

 picture a most animated gathering of the Black elves of old, hurrying 

 to and fro for the accomplishment of some important mission, ere 

 dreaded Day begins to ride his shining steed through the pathway 

 of the sky. 



The wide ranging birds from the sea have returned to land to 

 relieve their brooding mates, and the air seems full of them, calling 

 on every hand ; the scene seems a hopeless chaos of activity, but soon 

 by careful observation it is resolved to one of orderly purpose. As 

 each flying bird passes over its nest, it calls in a hurried gibberish, 

 to be answered by its brooding mate in an energetic purr often end- 

 ing with a coaxing wail ; the flying bird dashes on and swings away 

 to leeward again coming up the wind, and again as it passes its nest 

 calls as before to be answered again ; time and again this is repeated, 

 each passage over the nest finding the flying bird lower and lower 

 in its flight, until it finally drops to the entrance of its burrow to meet 

 its anxious mate. Now from the dank weeds and grass, like great 

 June bugs others are rising or crawling to a convenient place to rise. 

 One is in the very midst of their activities. From one's feet to 



