CAPPED PETREL. 9 



furze-bush to another ; at length it got into one of the bushes, 

 and was then secured by him : exhausted as it was, it had 

 strength enough remaining to bite violently the hand of its 

 captor, who thereupon killed it. The late Mr. Newcome, of 

 Hockwold Hall, near Brandon, fortunately happened at the 

 time to be hawking in the neighbourhood of Swaffham, and 

 his falconer, John Madden, observing the boy with the dead 

 bird, procured it from him, and brought it to his master, by 

 whom it was skinned and mounted, and in whose collection 

 it found a place. A detailed account of this bird, with two 

 illustrations, is given by Prof. Alfred Newton in 'The Zoolo- 

 gist' for 1852, p. 3691. 



In the Museum at Boulogne there is an example said to 

 have been shot near that town many years ago by its donor, 

 a sportsman long since deceased, and these are the only 

 two instances on record of the occurrence of this species on 

 the shores of Europe. Little is known of the distribution 

 or head-quarters of this Petrel. In the British Museum 

 there is a specimen from Hayti ; and in Paris there are 

 three examples obtained by L'Herminier, in the island of 

 Guadeloupe.* Lafresnaye states, on his authority (Rev. 

 Zool. 1844, p. 168), that there are two closely-allied species 

 in that island, the one arriving towards the end of September, 

 and breeding in the cliffs ; the latter, and somewhat smaller 

 species, arriving at a different time of year, and breeding in 

 the same cliffs, but at a different elevation. The natives 

 distinguish them as ' Petrels des hauts ' and * Petrels des 

 has.' One or both of these may, perhaps, be the ' Diablotin ' 

 of the natives, stated nearly two centuries ago by Pere Labat 

 to breed in holes in the mountains, especially in La Souflfriere 

 of Guadeloupe, and in Dominica ; and it has been assumed 

 that Labat's bird may be this species ; but against this it 

 must be said that Labat expressly states tbat his ' Diablotin ' 

 is black all over, and as such ho figures it. Mr. F. Ober, 

 who recently visited the above islands, and made expeditions 

 to the mountains for the purpose of obtaining the ' Diablotin,' 



* Tliere is a fourth specimen in the Paris Museum, and one at Leiden, but the 

 localities of their capture are not positively known. 



VOL. IV. C 



