2294 TUBE-NOSED BIRDS, DIVING BIRDS, PENGUINS 



of great length, and its outer sheath so produced as to reach beyond the proper 

 apertures of the nostrils, thus giving the appearance of a single nostril. The tail 

 is characterized by the presence of sixteen feathers. In general appearance and size 

 this bird is not unlike some of the smaller dark colored albatrosses, its total length 

 being about thirty-two inches, and the span of the wing sixty-six inches. Although 

 pale-hued individuals are far from uncommon, the general color of the plumage is 

 typically dull slaty brown, becoming paler on the face, throat, and under parts, and 

 some of the feathers of the upper parts tinged with chocolate, while those of the 

 back, as well as the wing coverts, have paler grayish margins. The beak is 

 yellowish-horn color; and the legs and feet are grayish black 



Commonly known to sailors by the name of nelly, break bones, or stinker, the 

 giant petrel is widely distributed over the temperate and high southern latitudes, 

 occasionally wandering to a considerable distance north of the Equator, and in 

 power of flight is fully equal to the albatrosses. In habits it differs considerably 

 from the latter, subsisting chiefly on the blubber and flesh of dead seals and whales, 

 as well as the bodies of other birds. Moseley, who compares it in these respects 

 to a vulture, writes that in Kerguelen, this petrel " soars all day along the coast 

 on the lookout for good No sooner is an animal killed than numbers appear as if 

 by magic, and the birds are evidently well acquainted with the usual proceedings of 

 the sealers who kill the sea elephant, take off the skin and blubber, and leave 

 the carcass. They settled down here all round in groups at a short distance, 

 a dozen or so together, to wait, and began fighting among themselves, as if to 

 settle which was to have first bite." When gorged, they are quite unable to fly; 

 and, like other members of the family, if disturbed they have an unpleasant habit 

 of disgorging an ill-smelling oily fluid. These birds breed on Kerguelen and Prince 

 Edward's island, where they lay a single, dirty, white egg in a natural hollow of 

 the ground. The newly -hatched young are covered with a long gray down, and 

 later on the nestlings, when approached, are stated to squirt from their nostrils an 

 oily fluid to a distance of six or eight feet, the old birds remaining a short distance 

 away. 



In the Arctic regions and other parts of the Northern Hemi- 

 sphere, the place of the giant petrel is taken by the gull-like fulmar 

 (Fulmarus glacialis}, which is likewise the only well-defined representative of its 

 genus. Of much smaller size than the giant petrel, the fulmar differs by the beak 

 being inferior in length to the metatarsus, and the proportionately shorter and 

 stouter nasal tubes, in which the septum between the two nostrils extends to 

 within a 'short distance of the orifice; the tail feathers, moreover, are either 

 twelve or fourteen in number. The fulmar measures about nineteen inches in 

 length, and displays great variation as regards color. In the typical form, how- 

 ever, the head and neck are white, most of the upper parts, as well as the tail 

 feathers, pearl gray, the primaries slaty gray, and the breast and under parts white. 

 The iris is dark brown, the beak yellow at the tip, with yellowish-white sides, and 

 a greenish tinge at the base above, while the legs and feet are pale gray. A 

 gray phase is also commonly met with, in which the head and neck, as well as 

 the greater portion of both the upper and under parts are ashy brown, with 



