264 THE ANIMALS OF NEW ZEALAND 



fast, the thread will not be strong enongh to hold them ; bnt if it 

 is too thick, they will see it and avoid it. When canght and 

 brought on board, the birds throw up from their moutlLs, as soon 

 as touched, a ciuantity of red. strong-smelling oil, not as a means 

 of offence or defence, but simply from fright. They cannot rise 

 from the deck, but run along with outstretched wings. Their cry 



(After Goidd.) 



Cape Pigeon. 



is like the sound made by drawing a piece of iron across a large 

 toothed comb: "cac, cac, cac-cac, cac," the third being 

 pronounced the quickest. 



An interesting feature of the operations of the Scottish 

 National Antarctic Expedition, which was sent out in 1903, and 

 returned in 1904, was the discovery of the egg of the Cape pigeon. 

 Its egg, as far as is known, had never been seen before by human 

 beings. Like most of the petrels, the Cape pigeon lays a single 

 egg, which is pure white in colour, and is deposited in a nest that 

 consists of a few fragments of stone raked together on a bare 

 ledge of the cliff. 



