264 ALEXANDER, Australian Sea Birds. [Tii'S 



Mutton-bird (P. tenuirostris) . According to North, the Wedge- 

 tailed Petrel (P. pacificus) is the common species on the coast 

 of New South Wales. On October 22nd, at Coolangatta, South 

 Queensland, I saw a specimen of one or other of these species 

 a few yards out from the shore floating about inside the breakers. 

 I waded out to cai)ture it, thinking it must be wounded, but just 

 as I reached it it started i)addling away, and rapidly took to 

 flight, circling back inland and settling on the beach. Here two 

 dogs made a rush for it, but it just managed to avoid them, and, 

 skimming away over the sandhills, disappeared from sight in 

 the direction of Tweed Heads. 



Procellaria aequinoctialis. Cape Hen. — My observations on 

 this species on two recent voyages across the Indian Ocean seem 

 to have some bearing on the question of its occurrence in our 

 waters. In March, 1920, when travelling from Fremantle to 

 Durban, a i^air appeared in 31 deg. S., 87 deg. E., and consider- 

 able numbers were seen every day after that until we reached 

 the African coast. On the return voyage they were seen in 

 great numbers the first two days after leaving Capetown in June, 

 1921. The next two days they were still numerous, and on 

 each of the following days two were seen. The last were ob- 

 served in 34 deg. S., 48 deg. E. Ferguson records that further 

 south in 41 deg. S. lat. this species was observed daily until well 

 south of Australia {Bmu, vol. xxi., p. 110). This seems to con- 

 stitute the first definite lecord of this species in Australian seas, 

 as Gould is perfectly explicit in his statement that the birds he 

 saw in the neighbourhood of St. Paul and Amsterdam Islands 

 and thence to Australia were the Spectacled Petrel {P. conspicil- 

 lata). 



It is interesting that Ferguson saw one of this latter species 

 off the South African coast. Is it perhaps a dwindling species 

 which has become much rarer since Gould's time? It is note- 

 worthy that the specimens in Museums are nearly all old ones. 

 T have seen numbers of Cape Hens in the last two years on the 

 coasts of Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil and South Africa, and 

 all the way across the South Atlantic from Rio de Janeiro to 

 Capetown, but not one with the spectacle markings. Murphy 

 did not meet with them in his South Atlantic voyages referred 

 to above, though according to Mathews and Iredale most of the 

 specimens recorded have been met with in that ocean. 



Procellaria cinerea. P)rown Petrel. — I saw two specimens of 

 this l)ird on July 2nd, 1921, in 32 deg. S., 96 deg. E., and another 

 the following day in 32 deg. S., 101 deg. E. The former posi- 

 tion is about intermediate between Amsterdam Islaml and Aus- 

 tralia, but the latter is definitely nearer to the continent, so that 

 I can add my own name to those of Gould, Giglioli and Macgil- 

 livray as having seen it in Australian waters. (See Bmu, vol. 

 XX., p. 21.) I had previously .seen it on a number of occasions 



