16 PROCELLAllIIDiE. 



the Great Shearwater, for the bird that breeds on the 

 Desertas, near Madeira, and the egg of which was figured by 

 Hewitson as belonging to P. major, is really P. kuhli. Nor 

 have we many details respecting its habits. Its flight is 

 described as very striking ; with a single movement of the 

 wings it alters its course, gliding down the valleys between 

 the Atlantic rollers with a barely perceptible quiver, and 

 without any apparent effort. As regards its food, Mr. 

 Gurney states that the stomach of the bird shot near Flam- 

 borough contained the horny jaws of about half a dozen 

 small cuttle-fish : the jaws varying from a sixteenth to a 

 quarter of an inch in diameter ; and similar remains have 

 been found in the stomach of the Fulmar. 



In the bird from which the lower figure in our woodcut was 

 taken, the bill is dark purplish-brown, the hooked tip of the 

 upper mandible bluish-grey ; irides dark brown ; head and 

 occiput dark ash-grey ; back of the neck almost white ; back, 

 wing-coverts, and tertials, ash-grey ; all the margins greyish- 

 white ; primaries and tail-feathers blackish-brown ; chin, 

 sides, and front of neck, the breast, and sides of the body, 

 white ; lower belly, vent, and under tail-coverts dull white, 

 slightly varied with ash-brown ; legs, toes, and their mem- 

 branes, flesh-coloured, drying to yellow. The whole length 

 is eighteen inches ; of the wing, from the bend, thirteen 

 inches ; whole length of the bill one inch and seven-eighths ; 

 of the tubular portion half an inch ; of the tarsus two inches 

 and one-eighth ; of the middle toe and claw two inches and 

 seven-eighths. 



A specimen in the collection of Mr. E. Hargitt, taken at 

 Fiskenasset, Greenland, on the 28th June, 1876, has the 

 outer primaries in their sheaths and undeveloped. 



