214 The Rt. Rev. H. H. Montgomery on the 



4.43 I couiitecl a score on the rock together, and they were 

 all silent ; at the approach o£ daylight, 4.53, quite a rush of 

 birds anxious to depart; 5.5, a few still left; 5.15, the last 

 bird flew away from the rock I was observing. All round 

 hardly a Petrel was visible : just a few were Avheeling in 

 mid-air. At 5.19 a.m. the last of these birds disappeared, 

 and the rookery seemed to be absolutely devoid of life. At 

 5.23, just four minutes after the last Petrel had flown away, 

 I heard the wailing of a Pacific Gull, and its form was visible 

 in the distance. In a few minutes more a squadron of twenty 

 of these creatures, accompanied by as many Crows, came 

 sailing over my head, croaking and calling, and quartering the 

 ground to see whether any belated bird could be discovered. 

 At 5.41 the sun rose. I advance the theory, which is borne 

 out by the experience of all the half-castes and white men 

 who have spent their lives in these regions, that the Sooty 

 Petrels come to feed their young only at night and in com- 

 plete silence, and leave again before the other birds are 

 awake, because only by this means are they safe from enemies 

 in whose presence they are helpless when on the land. In 

 the air, of course, they fear no such foes. 



So far as Tasmania is concerned, these birds are found in 

 greatest numbers in the Furneaux Islands. On Chappell 

 Island, calculating solely by the young birds that had been 

 taken by the half-castes, I computed that there were 990,000 

 there at night in the breeding-seasou. Babel Island is 

 supposed to hold even more. Nor does the industry seem 

 to affect the numbers. There are other rookeries on the 

 islands north-west of Tasmania, and also at Port Davey 

 and on the southern coast, but no systematic attempt is 

 made to capture the birds for food, except in the Furneaux 

 Islands, where the half-castes all live — the remnants of the 

 old Tasmanian race — who make a trade of the salting and 

 exporting these birds in barrels. They prefer the Petrels as 

 food to anything else, and sell them at the average price 

 of 7s. a hundred. A large family has been known to salt 

 1000 birds in a day, and their harvest lasts for about six 

 weeks. Before the Government interposed and prevented 



