102 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



DAPTION CAPENSIS. 

 The Cape Pigeon. 



Procellaria capensis, Linn., Syst. Nat. i. (1766), p. 213. 



Daption capensis, Gould, B. Austr. vii. (1847), pi. 53 ; Sharpe, Rep. 'Southern Cross' Coll. (1902), p. 156, 

 ib'ique citato, ; Eagle Clarke, Birds of South Orkney Ids., Ibis, Jan. 1906, p. 174, pi. x., fig. 1. 



MATERIAL IN THE 'MORNING'S' COLLECTION. 



(a) Ad. sk. No label. 



(J) Ad. sk., ? . Oct. 4, 1902. 42 S. 24 E. 



(c) Ad. sk. Oct. 7, 1902. 



Colouring of the soft parts : 



Bill, black ; the bare skin beneath the mandible, dusky red. 



Iris, dark brown. 



Legs and toes, black. 



Webs, black between the toes, but white outside the third digit ; a frequent variety has 



white spots on the black web on each side of the central portion of each phalanx, 



with a deeper black surrounding each joint. 

 Claws, black. 



Daption capensis, the well-known Cape Pigeon, made its first appearance during our 

 voyage on September 18th, 1901 (31 S. 21 W.). It was then with us abundantly 

 each day throughout our course by South Trinidad to Cape Town, where we arrived on 

 October 3rd. We saw none while close in shore during our stay in Simon's Bay, but 

 directly we left, on October 15th, we picked the bird up again and kept numbers with 

 us throughout the whole of our voyage to New Zealand. Even while we were in the 

 ice pack on November 16th and 17th we were accompanied by a few, and so on till 

 November 28th, when we entered Lyttelton Harbour. On November 25th we were in 

 sight of the west coast of the Auckland Islands and Daption capensis was around us 

 in very great numbers. Yet in going south from New Zealand we saw hardly a 

 sign of it ; one only on December 29th, and a few on January 2nd, the day on 

 which we sighted ice. Farther south than this we did not meet with it. 



On our homeward voyage from the ice we first met it again on February 28th, 

 1904 (68 30' S. 173 E.), and we kept it with us past the Balleny Islands until 

 March 6th. Then, strange to say, the species absolutely disappeared, and we saw no 

 more on our way north to the Aucklands and New Zealand. What can be the 

 explanation of this extraordinary difference between the enormous numbers we saw in 

 the neighbourhood of the Auckland Islands during November and its complete 

 absence in the latter end of March ? It appears that there are far more extensive 

 migratory movements in these ocean wanderers than we at present recognise. In 

 Novelhber and December the Cape Pigeon should be breeding, as we now know from 

 the observations made by the Scottish Expedition in the South Orkneys. There is 



