26 A MANUAL OF THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



Large Puffinine birds with long bills, long wings, long wedge-shaped tail and 

 long legs and feet. The bill is typically Puffinoid, with the nasal tubes depressed 

 and the nostrils opening almost horizontally upwards. The long wedge-shaped 

 tail is characteristic, being almost half the length of the wing, and about three 

 times the length of the tarsus. The tarsus is typically Puffinoid and is a little longer 

 than the culmen, and the long toes exceed the tarsus in length, the inner with the 

 claw, the others without their claws. The webbing between the toes is full but 

 narrow, and the hind -toe is minute. 



Coloration uniformly sooty, or dark above and white below. 



16. Thyellodroma pacifica. WEDGE- TAILED SHEARWATER. 



[Procellaria pacifica Gmelin, Syst. Nat., Vol. I., pt. II., p. 560, (April 20th) 1789 : Pacific 

 Ocean == Kermadec Islands. Extra-limital.] 



Gould, Vol. VII., pi. 58 (pt. xxxiv.), Dec. 1st, 1848. Mathews, Vol. II., pt. 1, pi. 75, May 



30th, 1912. 



Puffinus chlororhynchiui Lesson, Trait<$ d'Orn., 8 e livr., p. 613. June llth, 1831 : No loc. = 



Slope Island, Shark Bay, West Australia. 



Puffinus sphenums Gould, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Vol. XIII., p. 365, May 1st, 1844 : Houtman's 



Abrolhos, West Australia. 



Puffinus pacificus royanus Mathews, Birds Austr., Vol. II., pt. 1, p. 85, May 30th, 1912 : 



Sydney, New South Wales. 



DISTRIBUTION. East and Southern Australian Seas. 



Adult male. General colour above sooty-brown, with pale margins of lighter 

 brown to the feathers of the mantle, back, scapulars and wings ; under-surface 

 dusky-brown, with hoary-grey on the chin, throat, and fore-neck ; under wing- 

 coverts and axillaries similar to the under-surface of body ; bill dark horn or 

 bone-brown, tarsus and feet (living specimens) fleshy-white or yellowish -flesh colour, 

 with black mottlings down the whole of the outer side of the tarsus and outer toe to 

 the base of the last phalanx ; toes whitish. Total length 420 mm. ; culmen (exp.) 

 37, wing 285, tail 135, tarsus 46. 



Adult female. Similar to the adult male. 



Nestling. About two weeks old : covered with down, the upper- and most 

 of the under-surface ashy-grey, throat and upper-breast greyish-white ; bill black, 

 with horn -coloured tip ; feet yellowish -white. Total length 6 inches. Broughton 

 Island, 30th January, 1911. 



About ten weeks old. True feathers on back and wings sooty-black, ashy-grey 

 on the breast, throat darker ; bill black, feet and toes yellowish -white. Total length 

 10 inches. Broughton Island, 13th March, 1911. 



Nest. At the end of a burrow. 



Egg. Clutch, one ; white ; axis 63 to 64 mm., diameter 41-42. 



Breeding-season. November. (Lord Howe Island.) September to December. 

 (Solitary Islands.) 



Distribution and forms. Throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Exact 

 distribution and status undetermined. Mathews discussed the relationship of the 

 present species and P. cuneatus Salvin and later the present writers reviewed it again. 

 The most recent investigator, Oberholser, acknowledges the same puzzling features, 

 but suggests acquiescence in the separation of the two as we concluded, not without 

 doubt. Four named subspecies were admitted as follows : T. p. pacifca (Gmelin) 

 from the Kermadec Islands, of large size with a very long powerful bill (=P. c. 

 iredali Mathews) ; T. p. royana Mathews, from East Australia, with horn-coloured 

 bill of smaller size, and shorter wings, tail, etc. ; T. p. chlororhyncha (Leeson) from 

 West Australia, of a paler coloration and paler bill, and T. p. hamiltoni Mathews, 

 from the Seychelles, which are darker above and below, with bill " rose." 



