170 ALIENS NATURALISTS LIBRARY. 



Adult Female — Similar to tlie male. Total length, 17*5 inches; 

 wing, I2-0. 



Characters. — The present species is distinguished by its 

 sooty-brown colour, both above and below, the under wing- 

 coverts being white with dusky shafts to the feathers. 



Rang-e in Great Britain. — An accidental visitor. " Identified 

 examples have been," says Mr. Saunders, "obtained — in our 

 summer and autumn — at North Berwick, in Scotland, and 

 along the east coast of England, especially off Yorkshire; 

 while several have been taken in the Channel as far west as 

 Cornwall, though the bird is evidently less abundant there 

 than its larger congener, P. gravis. In Ireland specimens 

 have been secured on the coast of Kerry and in Belfast Lough, 

 while others have been observed." 



Range outside the British Islands. — According to Mr. Osbert 

 Salvin, the present species is generally distributed throughout 

 the seas of both hemispheres, from the Faeroe Islands in the 

 North Atlantic, and the Kuril Islands in the North Pacific, 

 to the Straits of Magellan and the Auckland Islands. Its 

 breeding places are in the south, and its northward migrations 

 are performed during the southern winter, when it straggles 

 into the North Atlantic Ocean. 



Habits. — Of the life of this Shearwater, but little has 

 been recorded. Sir Walter BuUer, in his " Birds of New 

 Zealand," writes : — 



" It is a common species in the New Zealand seas, and is 

 said to be extremely abundant at Stewart's Island, and on the 

 adjacent coast. It is also comparatively plentiful on the 

 island of Kapiti, where it is found breeding as late as March. 

 On the island of Karewa and on the Rurima Rocks, large 

 numbers annually breed, sharing their burrows with the 

 Tuatera Lizard, and submitting, season after season, to have 

 their nests plundered by the Maoris, who systematically visit 

 the breeding-grounds when the young birds are sufficiently 

 plump and fat for the calabash. 



" Mr. Marchant informs me that he found this species 

 breeding in burrows near the summit of the island of Kapiti 

 about the end of February. The excavations were in peaty 



