464 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



each other until the pit is full, when the men break down the 

 fence at the sides and let the rest escape. They generally take 

 2000 to 2200 in each drive. The men then jump into the hole 

 and set to work to pick them, pulling off the body-feathers and 

 stuffing them into bags, and throwing the carcasses out of the 

 hole. This lasts till noon. It is hard work, and before the 

 end of the season their nails sometimes come off from the con- 

 tinual plucking. It takes the feathers of twenty-five birds 

 a make a pound, which sells at Launceston for twopence; but 

 Tucker, his wife, and his pal, Dick, collected a ton of feathers 

 last year. To do this they must have killed 56,000 birds ; 

 and yet they say their numbers do not seem to decrease. The 

 birds come back to the islands again on the 23rd of Novem- 

 ber to lay. They lay but one egg, and generally on the day 

 or the day after they arrive. The sealers collect a good many 

 for their use ; and when the young birds are nearly full-grown, 

 they attack them again for the sake of the oil with which the 

 old birds feed them. They thrust their hands into the hole, 

 pull out the young bird by the head, kill it by squeezing it, 

 and, holding it up by the legs, the oil runs out at the beak. 

 This oil is very clean and pure, burns well, and sells at 

 Launceston at four shillings per gallon. When the young 

 birds are full-grown, they are very fat. The men then pull 

 them out of their holes, spit them, and salt them. It is 

 rather dangerous work catching them in this way, for many 

 venomous snakes dwell in the holes, and are sometimes seized 

 and pulled out instead of a bird." — Ibis, 1859, p. 397. 



The egg is very large for the size of the bird, being two 

 inches and three-quarters long by one inch and seven-eighths 

 broad, and is of a snow-white. The white or albumen forms 

 a very large proportion of its contents ; and it is remarkable 

 that a small part of both the yolk and the white remains soft 

 and watery, however long the egg may be boiled. 



The food of the old birds consists of shrimps, small crus- 

 taceans and mollusks, which they principally procure from 



