642 LARIDJ5. 



farther to the eastward than the Azores, and beyond 

 these islands it generally abandoned the vessel. In my 

 journal, written on board the packet-ship Columbia, com- 

 manded by my worthy friend Joseph Delano, Esq., I find 

 the following memorandums : " Wilson's Petrel was first 

 seen, this voyage, about two hundred miles from England, 

 and alone until we reached the middle of the Atlantic, 

 when the Forked-tailed came in sight, after which the 

 the latter was most plentiful, and the Stormy Petrel by 

 far the least numerous. During my several visits to the 

 coasts of the Floridas, I saw scarcely any of these birds in 

 the course of several months spent there, but I found them 

 pretty abundant on returning towards Charlestown. This 

 species, like the others, feeds on mollusca, small fishes, 

 Crustacea, marine plants, and the greasy substances thrown 

 from vessels. When caught, an oily substance passes from 

 the mouth and nostrils. The sexes are similar in their ex- 

 ternal appearance." 



The bill is black ; the irides dark brown ; the head, 

 neck, back, wing-primaries, and the tail-feathers, dark 

 brownish-black ; greater wing-coverts and the secondaries 

 dark rusty-brown, lighter in colour near the end, with the 

 extreme edges and tips white ; upper tail-coverts white ; 

 chin, throat breast, and all the under parts sooty black, 

 except the feathers near the vent on each outside, which 

 are white, and some of the under tail-coverts are tipped 

 with white ; legs long and slender, with the toes and their 

 membranes black, but with an oblong greyish-yellow patch 

 upon each web. The whole length of a fine specimen seven 

 inches and a half; the wing, from the anterior bend to the 

 end of the longest quill-feather> six inches and one-eighth ; 

 length of tarsus one inch three-eighths ; middle toe and 

 claw one inch and three-sixteenths. 



