84 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



All were moulting, as one could see by the missing primaries of the wings. Several 

 were caught on threads. They had been feeding on small fish and squids, the beaks of 

 which formed part of the contents of their stomachs. On January 12th we lost them 

 for a while, and saw no more till we found them in exceptionally large numbers 

 at the extreme eastern edge of the Great Ice Barrier. Here in S. lat. 76 50' and 

 W. long. 158 we discovered King Edward VII.'s Land, and the unusual abundance of 

 Thalassceca antarctica may mean that they breed somewhere in the locality. There 

 was no spot in sight, however, that could possibly have suited them ; there were no 

 rocky cliffs worth mentioning, and no land that was not buried in an undulating and 

 almost unbroken sheet of snow and ice. Returning by this spot a few days later 

 we were again surrounded by large numbers of the bird, but we lost them the next day 

 entirely and as suddenly as we had before met with them on the same spot. They 

 were not on passage, but were flying to and fro as though in the neighbourhood of 

 their breeding place ; more than this we cannot say. From that time onward for 

 two full years in McMurdo Sound we did not see the bird, save once, when a single 

 straggler passed the ship. 



On our homeward journey, however, in 1904, we fell in with them on February 

 26th. We were then in pack ice, and on the 29th we saw large numbers and kept them 

 with us as we passed between the Balleny Islands. They were not in flocks. Some 

 were freshly moulted, but others had only just begun. One or two were caught on 

 threads and landed. We finally saw the last of them on the day that we crossed the 

 Antarctic Circle coming north. 



I have mentioned that between June 22nd and July 4th this bird was seen in 

 considerable numbers every day in the South Pacific Ocean. This throws some light 

 upon their movements during the winter and extends their range. They are not 

 so strictly ice birds as they were supposed to be, since they leave the ice for the open 

 ocean in the winter months. We saw none in the South Atlantic. Upon their breeding 

 haunts we can throw no light. It is possible that Scott Island may repay a search in 

 January or December, and further exploration of King Edward VII.'s Land may some 

 day disclose their eggs and young. At present, however, these still remain unknown, 

 and the nesting place a mystery. 



PRIOCELLA GLACIALOIDES. 



The Southern Fulmar. 



Proceliaria glacialoides, Smith, 111. Zool. S. Afr. Aves. (1840), pi. 51. 



Priocella glacialoides, Baird, Brewer and Ridgw., Water Birds N. Amer., ii. (1884), p. 375 ; Sharpe, Rep. 

 'Southern Cross' Coll., 1902, p. 145, ibique citato, ; Eagle Clarke, Birds of S. Orkney Ids., Ibis, 

 Jan. 1906, p. 170. 



