70 ON AESTRELATA ATERRIMA. 
NOTE XV. 
ON AESTRELATA ATERRIMA (BONAPARTE) 
BY 
Dr. E. D. VAN OORT. 
Last year Mr. P. Buitendyk had the good fortune to 
obtain again an example of Aestrelata aterrima (Bonaparte), 
caught aboard ship at night in the Indian Ocean (lat. 
10° 52’ N., long 60° 8’ HE.) at December 11th 1911. This is 
the second example presented by him to our collection 
(cf. Notes Leyden Mus. XXXIII, 1910—’11, p. 113). It 
is a female in worn plumage, moulting wing- and tail- 
feathers, and having no whitish feathers on the lores and 
on the head like the first specimen. Mr. Buitendyk has 
noted the colour of the light parts of the feet in the live 
bird dull white; that of iris and bill black. I received the 
bird in rather fresh condition, as it had been preserved in the 
refrigerating-room of the steamer; the colour of the light 
parts of the feet was then whitish, with a faint rosy tinge 
near the heel-joint. Now the feet are dried and have 
changed colour; they are at present of a dark brownish 
flesh-colour, and somewhat resemble the feet of the bird, 
figured in Du Cane Godman’s Monograph, in which plate 
the feet seem to have been coloured after the faded feet 
of the specimen in the Cambridge Museum. 
As this is already the second specimen accidentally 
caught, this species likely is in our wintermonths of regular 
occurrence in the northwestern part of the Indian Ocean. 
Leyden Museum, January 1912. 
Notes from the Leyden Museum, Vol. XXXIV. 
