144 ALLEN S 



median series browner ; bill and feet black. Total length, 7*2 

 inches; culmen, o*6 ; wing, 5'95 ; tail, 27; tarsus, 0-9. 



Adult Female.— Similar to the male. Total length, 7 inches ; 

 wing, 6-25. 



Nestling, — Covered with sooty-black down. The inner 

 secondaries are narrowly but distinctly edged with white. 



Characters. — The present species has a forked tail like the 

 preceding one, but it is a blacker bird, and is recognised by 

 the long upper tail-coverts having a broader sooty-black tip 

 than in the Fork-tailed Petrel. It differs, moreover, in having 

 the base of the outside tail-feathers ivhite. 



Range in Great Britain. — A specimen of this Petrel was 

 exhibited by Mr. Boyd Alexander at the meeting of the 

 Bridsh Ornithologists' Club, on the 29th of April, 1896. This 

 individual had been picked up dead on the beach at Little- 

 stone, in Kent, on the 5th of December, 1895. 



Range outside the British Islands. — This Petrel appears to be 

 by no means uncommon in Madeira and the neighbouring 

 Desertas and Salvage Islands. It is also known from S. 

 Helena, and occurs in the Pacific Ocean on the Hawaian 

 Islands and in the Galapagos. It was first described by Mr. 

 Robert Ridgway, from the Hawaian Archipelago. 



Habits. — Of this species, only described for the first time in 

 1882, but little is known. It appears to be more plentifiil in 

 the Atlantic than in the Pacific Islands, where it was first 

 discovered. Its habits are similar to those of the other small 

 Petrels. 



Nest. — In crevices of the rocks. 



Eggs. — One only. White, with an ill-defined zone of dry 

 blood-coloured spots at the larger end. 



THE FLAT-CLAWED STORM-PETRELS. 

 SUB-FAMILY OCEANITIN^. 



In the preceding sub-family the claws are sharp and 

 compressed ; in the Oceanitince they are very flat. According 

 to Mr. Osbert Salvin, the witig-bones are shorter than the 



