20 Mr. R. Hall on the 



collecting insects. Having sat down to finish a piece of 

 buttered rye-bread, 1 observed the bird alight on a jutting 

 mass of loose stones, and this led me to remove the stones 

 from the entrance to the nest and to discover a delicate egg. 

 At about 8 P.M. the croaking begins, for now the "night- 

 shift " has come in from the sea to go on duty. Many 

 congratulations seem to be exchanged. Go straight to a 

 wild-looking piece of the coast if you want nests. Look 

 under large or small slabs of stone or within the crevices 

 in the clifP-sides. Most of the nests are saucer-like, and 

 neatly put together with loose twigs. Your shovel will act 

 as a lever to lift the slabs and expose them, when the sitting 

 bird will move away to the farthest corner to escape the lighc, 

 never offering to bite, although the act would be harmless. 

 At 7 A.M. I have found the male bird sitting on the egg, 

 indicating, in this case, that it will sit out the day. A male 

 also flew on board on one occasion during the night, which 

 probably meant that it had a mate sitting on the nest. Thus 

 the male possibly sits either day or night. At 8 p.m. I 

 have taken both male and female from a nest which was in 

 an earthen bank and had an entrance and an exit. 



The nests of this species were built principally of Azoi'ella- 

 stalks. They were flat, in a shallow indentation beneath a 

 stone, and had no definite tunnel running to them. The 

 bird would sometimes scratch an entrance. A typical nest 

 measured 7x5 inches, and the depth of the bowl was 5 inches. 

 On handling a bird, it will (like other Petrels) eject a fatty 

 globule, for a distance of 2 feet. I used to track the sitting 

 birds between 8 and 10 p.m. by their strong but mellow note. 

 One evening's search produced seven nests containing young 

 and eggs. The eggs diff'er very slightly in size : six mea- 

 sured 1"3 in. X 0'9 in. On February 3rd I found three eggs 

 (fresh and hard-set) ; on 7th, 8th, and 9th, four fresh eggs, 

 seven young nestlings, and two hard-set eggs ; on the 14th 

 one hard-set egg. The egg has an almost tiue oval form, 

 slightly wider towards one end, around which was a circle of 

 pale pink spots. The nestling was covered with a uniform 

 greyish-black down. Bill black ; legs bluish, tinged with 



