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them when the twilight of evening approaches, and procure 

 at sea food for themselves and their young. " They feed 

 upon all kinds of marine animal substances in a state of 

 decomposition, and of an oleaginous quality, and nourish 

 their young by disgorging oil into their throat. When 

 captured, they annoy their assailant by ejecting quantities 

 of oil from their tubular nostrils." 



THE DUSKY PETREL. Puffinus olscurus. In Mr.YarrelTs 

 Supplement, so recently adverted to, we find a record of the 

 capture of a single bird of this species, which flew on board 

 a small sloop off the island of Valencia, on the south-west 

 coast of Ireland, late in the evening of the llth of May, 

 1853; and in the course of his remarks, Mr. Yarrell intro- 

 duces a quotation from a published sketch of Madeira, by 

 Edward Yernon Harcourt, Esq., to the following effect : 

 "The Dusky Petrel is a very tame bird, and will live upon 

 almost anything; my bird would climb up my trousers by 

 its beak and claws, to obtain small portions of food ; it runs 

 along the ground on its belly, and uses its curious-shaped 

 bill in climbing up the rocks. Those I had in my posses- 

 sion alive, were some of them caught with fish-hooks baited 

 with meat, by the Portuguese, and some taken. by the hand 

 in the daytime from underneath stones, where they hide 



