THK VICTORIAN NAJUKAL-lSl . 169 



The Mutton-bird has characteristics which render it a remark- 

 able creature. It is properly known as the Short -tailed or Sooty 

 Petrel, Puffinus ienuirostris, Temminck. It is of a uniform dusky 

 colour, web-footed, and about the size of a small duck. Its 

 food is chiefly molluscs, crustaceans, &c. Thousands upon 

 thousands annually visit Phillip Island, as well as other places 

 in Bass Strait, to breed. Miles upon miles the flocks extend. 

 The punctuality with which the birds arrive is truly wonderful. 

 From about 13th to i6th September they first appear, to clean 

 out their burrows, and presumably to mate. About the first 

 week in November all go forth to sea again. The return of the 

 birds, both male and female, the latter to lay, commences about 

 the 1 8th November, and continues each evening for about ten 

 days, the great mass of arrivals being possibly the 25th or 26th. 

 The incoming of the birds at dusk is a marvellous sight. 



Let me endeavour, feebly perhaps, to describe just one spot in 

 the general scerie. I have been Mutton-birding in three States, 

 and after several species, but gained my first experiences on old 

 Wollomai long ago. First impressions, like " first love," are best 

 remembered. We are on the crown of the Cape, with the surf 

 coiling in gently below. The sun has set. We sit in anxious 

 expectation to be introduced to our feathered friends. Precisely 

 at 35 minutes after sundown one bird darts in from seaward 

 like an arrow ; but " one swallow does not make a summer." 

 Presently a fevv more fly around, then dozens come, then 

 hundreds, and, however incredible it may seem, then thousands. 

 Such a scene is difificult to describe, more difticult to explain. 

 In the dim gloaming, lit up by a new-horned moon, myriads of 

 dusky feathered forms are cutting the air and circling in all 

 directions with lightning-like rapidity, their flight resembling that 

 of ^Vild Ducks, very swift. We stand behind some bushes as the 

 birds whizz past. Two or more may be coming in the direction 

 of any of us, who launches out with his egging crook at the first 

 form; it is by like a Swift. He stiikes a yard or two behind it, 

 while the next bird nearly lilts his hat. However, at times the 

 air is so thick that it would be well nigh impossible to miss a 

 bird were you to strike. By dark the majority of birds have 

 landed, and the whole place seems literally alive with feathers, 

 and such a noise — flapping of wings along the ground, pattering 

 of webbed feet, rustlings through grass and bushes ; while 

 hundreds of birds are underground, croaking, squeaking, 

 wrangling. So on the livelong night. The place is never still. 

 Many birds appear to keep upon the ground ; others are on the 

 wing the whole night long, judging by their squealing cries 

 o'erhead. 



On a subsequent occasion, and after waking suddenly from a 

 nap enjoyed on the lee side of an outcrop of rock, our surround- 



