DAPTION. 357 



axillaries, and under wing-coverts near edge of wing dark brown ; 

 remainder of wing-lining white. 



Bill dusky brown, bluish at base, and on three-fourths of lower 

 mandible ; irides brown ; legs and feet white, tinged with pink and 

 lavender ; claws, margin of web, outer toe, and part of ridge of mid- 

 toe black (Hume). The amount of black on the foot varies slightly. 



Length 13; tail 2-8 (median feathers about '5 longer than 

 outer) ; wing 7'9 ; tarsus 1*5 ; bill from gape 1*75. 



Distribution. The Arabian 8ea, from the neighbourhood of 

 Bombay to Aden. Not rare off the Sind and Baluchistan coasts. 



This bird is scarcely separable from ^he widely spread 

 P. obscurus, of all tropical and subtropical oceans. It differs in 

 having the axillaries dark brown instead of white or mottled, and 

 is perhaps rather larger, but the difference is very slight. As 

 Mr. Salvin has kept P. persicus distinct, I admit the species, but 

 I am inclined to regard it as only a geographical race. 



Genus DAPTION, Stephens, 1826. 



Bill short, stout, gonys angulate near the end, and the extremity 

 inclined upward ; nostrils terminating in a single orifice, but 

 divided within. Wings long, 1st quill longest, secondaries short. 

 Tail rather short, slightly rounded at the end ; rectrices 14. 

 Tarsus slender, reticulate, somewhat compressed and shorter than 

 the middle or outer toe ; hind claw stout. 



There is only one species. 



1540. Daption capensis. The Cape Petrel. 



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



Daption capensis, Steph. in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii, pt. 1, p. 241, 



pi. 28 ; Hume, Ibis, 1870, p. 438 ; id. S. F. vii, pp. 442, 463 ; id. 



Cat. no. 975 ter ; Leyge, Birds Ceyl. p. 1056 ; Oates, B. B. ii, 



p. 438; Salvin, Cat. B. M. xxv, p. 428. 



Coloration, Head all round and hind neck brownish black; 

 upper parts white, each feather broadly tipped with black, except 

 the smaller wing-coverts and the primary-coverts, which are 

 blackish throughout ; quills and tail-feathers white with long 

 black tips, the outer webs of the earlier primaries also blackish ; 

 lower parts from the throat white, the feathers of the throat and 

 lower tail-coverts more or less spotted with dusky. 



Bill black ; irides brown ; legs and feet deep brown, the toes 

 spotted at the side with whitish (Leyge). 



Length about 16; tail 4; wing 10-25; tarsus 1-7; bill from 

 gape 1-6. 



Distribution. This Petrel, known to sailors as the " Cape 

 Pigeon," is common throughout the Southern Oceans, but is of 

 rare occurrence north of the Equator. A single individual,, of 

 v\hichthe skin is preserved in the Hume Collection, was shot by 

 Mr. Theobald in the Gulf of Manaar, between Ceylon and the 

 mainland. 



