468 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



with a hook and Une, and thus afforded Mrs. Gould an oppor- 

 tunity of making a beautiful drawing from life. It was a 

 species which particularly interested me while at sea, as much 

 for its familiar habits as for its peculiar actions and mode of 

 flight : with the exception of the Cape Petrel {Daption ca- 

 pensis), no species was more readily taken with a baited hook. 

 Like that bird it has very broad primaries, giving an appear- 

 ance of great breadth to the end of the wing, has the same 

 number of feathers (14) in the tail, and the nostrils placed in 

 a single tube. 



The late Sir Andrew Smith, who was the first to discri- 

 minate the characters which distinguish this species, remarks 

 that, " In many respects it has a strong resemblance to the 

 ProceUaria glacialis of authors ; the length of the bill, how- 

 ever, is not only greater, but the thickness is also different, 

 being inferior to that of P. glacialis, and neither are ever 

 otherwise in any individual of the Cape species .... It 

 often hunts for its food in the neighbourhood of the South 

 African coasts, and even frequently enters the bays, appa- 

 rently for the same purpose. It flies higher above the surface 

 of the water than the smaller species, rests more frequently- 

 and seems well-disposed to feed upon dead animal matter, 

 when such can be procured." 



All the upper surface and tail delicate silvery grey ; outer 

 webs, shafts, a line along the inner webs, and the tips of the 

 primaries and the outer webs of the secondaries slaty black ; 

 face and all the under surface pure silky white ; irides brown- 

 ish black ; nostrils, culmen, and a portion of the base of the 

 upper mandible bluish lead-colour ; tips of both mandibles 

 fleshy horn-colour, deepening into black at their points ; 

 remainder of the bill pinky flesh-colour ; legs and feet grey, 

 washed with pink on the tarsi and blotched with slaty black 

 on the joints. 



