382 PETRELS AND SHEARWATERS 



beginning of July, and fresh eggs may be found even in mid- August in the Shetlands. 

 On the Blaskets Seebohm found a few eggs still unhatched on 17th September. 

 Only a single young bird is reared in the season. [F. c. E. j.] 



5. Food. Dr. Coppinger [Cruise, H.M.S. Alert] found in gizzards of speci- 

 mens taken on St. Paul's rocks, minute shells and otoliths of fishes. They also eat 

 sorrel when ashore. The young are fed by both parents on regurgitated oil. 

 [w. P. P.] 



LEACH'S PORKTAILED-PETREL [Oceanddroma leuc&rhoa 

 (Vieillot). Mother Carey's chicken, swallow (gen.). French, thalassidrome 

 culrblanc ; German, gabelschwanzige SturmschwaXbe ; Italian, uccdlo ddle 

 tempeste a coda forcuta]. 



1. Description. This species is readily distinguished by its long, deeply 

 forked tail, white upper tail-coverts, and the drab-brown colour of the median 

 and major coverts. The sexes are alike, and there is no seasonal change of colora- 

 tion. (PI. 173.) Length 8 in. [203 mm.]. The general coloration is of a sooty 

 brown, with more or less distinct tinge of dark slate-grey on the back. The median 

 and major coverts are of a drab-brown ; the latter and the inner secondaries have, 

 further, more .or less conspicuously white margins. The upper tail-coverts are 

 white ; the remiges and rectrices black. The juvenile dress differs from that of 

 the adult only in having the white margins along the major coverts somewhat 

 more strongly marked. The young in down are of a sooty brown, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. The only recorded localities where this species has been 

 found breeding in Scotland are the St. Kilda group, where it breeds on Boreray, 

 Soay, and sparingly on the other isles, the Flannan Isles, and North Rona ; while 

 in Ireland it is known to breed on Tearaght and Inishnabro (Co. Kerry), and off 

 the Mayo coast. Outside the British Isles it breeds on the Westmanneyjar (Iceland), 

 and in North America from Labrador to the Bay of Fundy. On migration it has 

 occurred on the coasts of Western Europe from Norway to Spain, and in the 

 Mediterranean as far east as Sicily, and once in the Baltic (Kurland). In the 

 Atlantic it wanders to the Canaries, Madeira, and the Gold Coast, while on the 

 American side it ranges south to Virginia. It is also found breeding on the islands 

 of the North Pacific (Kuriles, Commander Isles, and probably the Aleutian Isles 

 and the Alaska and California coasts), visiting Japan in winter. [F. c. E. J.] 



3. Migration. A summer visitor to its breeding-stations (see preceding 

 paragraph), but generally distributed in British seas in autumn and winter, when 



