PROCELLABITD^} PRION 487 



25 S. lat. on the East Coast of Africa. Examples in the South 

 African Museum all from the neighbourhood of Table Bay have 

 been obtained in the months of September and October. 



Habits. This Petrel can be at once distinguished from all others, 

 even at a considerable distance, by its mottled back ; it can often be 

 seen following ships, and it swims and dives with great facility ; 

 it is very tame, and will come close alongside in order to obtain 

 scraps, especially of a fatty nature, and is very easily secured with 

 a hook and line or by hanging over the ship's side light threads in 

 which it will entangle itself. When placed on the deck of a ship 

 it cannot rise in the air, but waddles about with outstretched wings 

 in a rather ridiculous manner, and generally throws up from its 

 stomach a quantity of reddish oil. Its natural food seems to consist 

 of fish and cuttle-fish ; bones of the former and beaks of the latter 

 were among the contents of the stomachs of individuals examined 

 in the flesh in the South African Museum. 



Although this Petrel is so abundant and well known, it is only 

 recently that authenticated eggs of it have been obtained. Mr. E. 

 Hall (Ibis, 1900, p. 28) found four nests among the cliffs of Betsy 

 Cove in Kerguelen on February 7 ; they were in small cavities or 

 grottos about fifty feet above the sea level, and each contained one 

 young bird partially covered with down ; the nests themselves were 

 nothing more than hollows among the stones without any lining. 



More recently the members of the Scottish Antarctic Expedition 

 met with this bird breeding in the South Orkneys, and secured 

 examples of their eggs. (Nature, vol. 71, p. 425, 1905.) 



Genus VIII. PRION. 



Type. 

 Prion, Lacepede, Mem. I' List, iii, p. 513 (1801) P. vittatus. 



Bill moderate ; about as long as the head, of very varying breadth, 

 hook small, not half the length of the culmen ; sides of the palate 

 with a series of horny lamellae more or less well developed ; tip of 

 the lower mandible down-curved ; nasal tube very short, hardly a 

 quarter the length of the culmen, the orifices separated by a septum 

 which extends forwards beyond the external openings ; wings 

 moderate, first primary usually the longest ; tail of twelve feathers ; 

 tarsus slender, shorter than the middle toe and claw and covered 



