AND OTHER BIRDS 21 



cask water, even when boiled, tasted of oil ; and 

 the rain which fell every day had at least this 

 advantage that it replenished our tins with clean 

 water. 



The one little brook would have been, I am 

 quite sure, unfit for use, draining as it did acres 

 of Petrel burrows. 



None of the birds of the island other than the 

 Petrel tribe had yet begun to nest, although the 

 Black-backed Gulls were calling uneasily over 

 the vicinity of their future breeding grounds; 

 and although we found Sea Hawk on the eastern 

 point beginning to resent intrusion, swooping 

 and screaming if such a designation can be 

 applied to their puny cry, faint even when most 

 furious. 



In a deep bay to the north were congregations 

 of Kittiwakes and Sea Swallows also beginning 

 to feel themselves injured by an approach to the 

 chosen site of their future nests. With none of 

 these superterranean species laying, all our 

 work was of a horrid rheumatic troglodytic 

 sort, and rather resembled digging out bogged 

 rabbits than clean bird nesting. 



The fierce Parara, very easily distinguished 

 on account of his broad bill with laminated 

 edges, we found to be the most forward of the 

 Petrels. The rather blunt egg was much incu- 

 bated and peat stained and with its original 

 white changed when dry to a ferruginous red. 

 One sitting bird which we took for identification 

 and which was skinned by McLean turned out 

 on examination to be a male. 



The burrow of the Parara varies in length 

 from three to four or five feet, and the egg lies on 

 leaves of "mutton bird scrub" and fragments of 

 cut-leaf bracken, these resting on branchlets and 



