24 procellariidj:. 



skimming round the corner of a rock close to the water. 

 Perhaps they will have a great gathering, such as I en- 

 countered one evening in ' Smith's Sound.' There was a 

 congregation of at least three hundred, in the middle of 

 the tide-way, washing, dipping, preening feathers, and 

 stretching wings, evidently just awake, and making ready 

 for the night's diversion. As I wanted a few specimens 

 more than I had dug out of the hurrows, I ran my boat 

 well up to them, and when they rose got as many as I 

 wished, besides a few unfortunate cripples who were only 

 wdnged, and proved, by their agility in swimming and 

 diving, a good deal too much for my boatmen. I think a 

 good dog w^ould have no chance with them. They allowed 

 me to come quite close. They sit low in the water ; they 

 make no noise when disturbed, though in their holes they 

 are eloquent enough, the Scillonian synonyms of Creiv and 

 Gockatliodon being derived from the guttural melodies they 

 pour forth as the spade approaches the end in which the egg 

 is deposited. I once caught a pair in one burrow who were 

 crooning a duet of this kind before we commenced opera- 

 tions. I presume they were in the honey-moon, as there 

 was no egg. It is frequently deposited on the fine sandy 

 soil without any preparation, though generally there is a 

 slight accumulation of fern leaves and old stems. They 

 produce but one egg, which, when fresh laid, is of the most 

 dazzling whiteness, and of peculiarly beautiful texture ; it 

 measures two inches five lines in length, by one inch nine 

 lines in breadth, and is very large for the size of the bird. 

 When you kill a Shearwater by pressure, as I generally did 

 for the sake of her skin, she vomits a most abominable oil, 

 in which float so many particles of brilliant green that it 

 appears of that colour, though the stain it leaves is yellow. 

 The quantity got rid of in this way is sometimes enormous. 



"^Yhen the young bird leaves the egg it is covered with 

 greyish-black down, except a stripe along the centre of the 

 breast and belly, which is white. I found a chick very 

 lively in an egg which had been taken from the burrow 

 two days previously to my eixamining it. ]\Iy notice was 



