BY H. H. MONTGOMERY, D.D. 5 



On that Sunday morning I learnt that on Chappeli Island 

 (which has an area of 1,200 acres, including rocks and sand 

 patches) there were, in 1890, 21 families at work catching the 

 young birds for some eight weeks, beginning about the 18th 

 day of March. They caught and salted 204,000 birds. I asked — 

 "Did you take them all?" " No, that is impossible. We 

 go over the holes twice, and find just as many 

 the second time as the first. At least 100,000 young 

 birds must escape. When the time comes for their 

 flight the sea is covered with them." Let us consider 

 that 100,000 young petrels then escaped. This 

 brings our total of young birds to 304,000, neglecting those 

 which meet with untimely deaths. Now, each pair of mutton 

 birds lays but one egg. Therefore at the lowest computation 

 (putting aside all barren pairs and those which had lost their 

 eggs or young) there must have been 608,000 old birds. 

 But this is not all. The 21 families of half-castes on 

 Chappeli Island live entirely on these birds during their 

 season. I made a calculation with them which showed that 

 from six to ten birds a day is the ordinary allowance for a man ; 

 and besides the human beings to be fed there are three or four 

 kangaroo dogs to each hut, who all have to be supported on 

 the same diet. In the two months of their stay these people 

 ate at least 26,000 young birds. And, lastly, the parents of 

 these young ones so eaten amounted to 52,000. So, then, 

 we are well within the mark when we say that on any night 

 in February there were in 1890, on Chappeli Island alone, 

 990,000 petrels. We are accustomed to be told of the 

 wondrous wealth added to our food resources by salmon, 

 which cost nothing but a little watching, and come back 

 from the sea ten times the size they went for the sake, appa- 

 rently, of feeding maukind. I submit that the mutton birds 

 are a case equally in point. That the young fresh birds are de- 

 licious eating I can testify. They taste like a very fresh 

 herring as we know that fish in the Old Country. Broiled or 

 fried it is a dish to set before a king. When salted 

 they are unquestionably nutritious, and probably quite 

 as healthful also, for delicate persons, as cod liver 

 oil. A little barren treeless hummock in our seas pro- 

 duced then last year J21,020 in cash. Destroy that rookery 

 by letting some dozen cattle roam over it and a few sheep 

 and what is the result in the eyes of any reasonable person ? 

 What a loss to the wealth of the colony ? On this very 

 island there is a farmer who owns 40 acres of land. This 

 he stocks with cattle and sheep. His fence runs right across 

 the track from the only good harbour to the largest cluster 

 of huts. The half-caste lads pull down a panel sometimes. 

 The cattle roam over the rookeries. I have seen them there 

 .myself, and I have thought, while viewing the present state 



