May, 1908.] THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 21 



developed on side of lower throat. Length of bird, about 1914^ 

 inches. Bill 2^8 inches in length. In Nos. 5, 6, and 7 the top 

 joint of wing is covered with down, whilst in all the series 

 under review the irides are dark and the yellowish-coloured spot 

 or streak is found beneath the eye. 



(8.) Centre of throat, lores, and region beneath the eye bare. 

 Tuft of down more prominent on the crown. Forehead covered 

 with whitish feathers flecked with brownish-black spots. All 

 other parts covered with thick white down ; primaries, second- 

 aries, wing coverts, and mantle feathers, being dark grey, each 

 feather being tipped with a white spot, whilst the shaft of the tail 

 feathers is white, upper tail coverts almost white, whilst some 

 nearer the rump are tipped with white only. Length, 26 inches. 

 Bill, 3^ inches. No under tail coverts have as yet appeared. 

 At this stage of the bird's development it gets its wing and tail 

 feathers, whilst the other parts of the bird's body still retain the 

 down. It is evident that the development of these feathers before 

 the others has a relationship with the feathers that are moulted 

 first, since it is the tail and wing feathers that disappear earliest. 

 A noticeable fact is that at this stage the head, excepting the 

 lores and centre of throat, is covered with down, whilst the 

 patches that are bare remain naked in the adult. 



The shades of night approaching, I descended the cliff and 

 reached the rookery of the petrels and penguins, and waited there 

 to observe the home-coming of its inhabitants. At 8.45 p.m. the 

 pair of Black-cheeked Falcons still hovered around in the semi- 

 darkness, uttering angry notes at my continued presence, which 

 evidently prevented them from attacking the home-coming petrels. 

 At about 9 o'clock p.m. a solitary Mutton-bird arrived, and de- 

 scended noiselessly into its burrow ; then a couple of Snow-birds, 

 or Prions, flew quietly in, and after flying up and down the 

 rookery to take up the bearings of their nest, ihey flickered over 

 their burrows like large butterflies and descended to their young 

 ones beneath, after having cleared away the loose material that 

 had been blown into the mouth of the burrow with a few vigorous 

 backward kicks of their webbed feet. A faint " coo-coo-coo " of 

 welcome made by the adult bird could be heard, as it invited 

 its offspring to open its mouth whilst it regurgitated the contents 

 of its stomach, consisting of a thick greenish, oily paste, and 

 ejected it into the open gape of its progeny. The young of the 

 Dove-Petrels, or Prions, like most of the petrel family, resemble a 

 ball of slaty-grey fluffy down, in their earliest immature state. 

 They have a pair of little beady black eyes, which peep out of the 

 down from just behind a slender black beak, which is sur- 

 mounted by the tube nostrils peculiar to the petrel family. 

 Leading an indolent life in the burrow, where they are protected 

 from wind, heat, and rain, they wax exceedingly fat on the tea- 

 spoonful of oily fish paste with which they are fed nightly. 



