^°'ig"-J KlXCllOkX .V C.\VLE^•, Storm Petrels. 91 



be tlie sign of adull plumaiie in (/rallariu and juvenile in Dielaiw- 

 gaster. Later, in referrinj,^ to Frcgetta (/rallaria, he says:^-' "A 

 specimen from Ambrose Is. shows only slight traces of while 

 fringes to the dorsal feathers, but the breast and abdomen are 

 pure white, there being no trace of black. This seems to indicate 

 that the white bars disappear more or less in fully adult birds." 

 This statement contradicts his earlier one to the effect that the 

 white edgings to the feathers of the back are a sign of the adult 

 stage. \V'e think that the presence or absence of the white 

 edgings to the feathers should not be taken into account as in 

 any way connected with specific characters, and should be put 

 down to variation caused by wear and tear or due to moult or 

 age. 2" The white edgings to the feathers occur both in the 

 white-bellied and black-bellied forms, and Mathews makes a 

 point of this on p. 40 of the work previously quoted. 



Loomis^i mentions that a specimen of Fregetta grollaria (pre- 

 sumed bv us to be f. leiico(/aster), which was shot in latitude 

 4° 20 S', longitude 93° 30' "W. (in the vicinity of the Gala- 

 pagos Islands) was undergoing a complete moult. The worn 

 feathers of the dorsal region were black with vestiges of white 

 tips in some instances, while the new feathers were heavily 

 washed with grey and broadly tipped with white. The throat 

 feathers were more or less white basally. He points out that in 

 some specimens the throat feathers are said to be wholly dark, 

 a phase which may be due to the existence of a dual coloration 

 similar to that which exists in Puffinis griseus and Piiffiiius 

 ehlororhyvchus. We agree with Loomis, and think that wear 

 and tear, dichromatism, geographic and individual variation 

 would account for the uniting of several species, which are at 

 present placed under different names. 



J\Iathews,22 " 'A specimen labelled Fregetta ? melanogaster 

 Gould. Off the E. Coast of X.S.W., May, 1875.' This is the 

 only authentic Australian produced specimen known to me. The 

 skin shows slight whitish tips to back feathers ; whitish bases to 

 throat show an as obscure whitish patch :ithe belly mark distinct 

 but ill defined : lower tail coverts have long black tips with white 

 bases and extend to end of tail : there is a whitish patch on inner 

 wing coverts and a brownish outer w^ing covert patch. W'ing 

 146, tail 69, tarsus 41, mid. toe 27, culmen IS mm. Nostrils 

 tending upward. This is my Fregetta tropica aiistralis. Gould 

 had not an Australian specimen of this bird or grallarius." 



One of Gould's specimens of T. melanogaster is labelled by 

 him as being from latitude 43° 18/ S., longitude 140° 52/ E., 

 this locality being about 200 miles west of Cape Grim, Tasmania. 



On March 24-25, 1922 a visit to the Macleay Museum re- 

 vealed the four specimens of Fregetta )uela>iogaster mentioned 

 above, comprising two flat skins (females) and two mounted 

 skins (male and female), all four being from "off East Coast of 

 Xew South \\'ales, May, 1875." On the flat skins the following 

 notes were made: — Nostrils raised well up from the culmen on 



