136 GENERAL REMARKS ON SOUTHERN COAST 



the gull is confined to the south coasts. I have not seen 

 it on the east side so far north as Sydney ; and only odd 

 individuals, or small roaming flocks, come eastward of 

 Wilson's promontory, Victoria. From that point, it is 

 more or less abundant as far as Cape Leeuwin, and 

 seemingly as occasional visitant, I have met with it as far 

 north as the North-West Cape, Exm.outh Gulf — that is a 

 hundred miles within the tropics. Probably, however, these 

 northern flocks are only wanderers ; many of the gulls are 

 great rovers, and if what whalers have told me is correct, 

 this bird, generally called the great black-backed gull, is 

 found as far south as their ships ever venture, and that is 

 almost, or quite, to the antarctic circle. In Australia it is 

 nowhere so abundant as on the coast of the Great Bight. 

 It cannot be questioned that it breeds in the desolate lofty 

 cliffs of that vast bay. Without actually seeing the young 

 (we were probably there at the wrong time of the year to 

 find them breeding) we saw the nesting places of these and 

 many other species high up the face of the cliffs. The 

 number of birds that assemble there on occasions, and 

 the extent to which the rocks were discoloured with their 

 droppings, placed it beyond doubt that millions of those 

 birds annually breed there. In fact the east of the Bight 

 is as remarkable for the multitude of its sea-birds, as the 

 country inland is for the scarcity of land-birds. Every 

 morning immense numbers of them go seaward, no doubt 

 to their feeding places, but many hover about the waters 

 inshore all day long ; the noise of their cries when they 

 are assembled at their roosting places on the cliffs, can be 

 heard at a very great distance, and is much accentuated to 

 the listening ear of the wanderer by the awful solitude of 

 that district. 



The storm-petrel is also a plentiful bird in the Bight. 

 Oceanites oceanicuSy Wilson's petrel, is the specific name of 

 this bird ; but the whalers still call all species of this bird 

 that are recognised by them to be petrels " Mother 

 Carey's chicken," and their lives are as sacred in the eyes 

 of the rough sailors as are those of certain land birds to 

 shore people. During our trying voyage, this little petrel 



