136 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS I ZOOLOGY. 



the distance. At this time, the water was in parts coloured by clouds 

 of small Crustacea. The inhabitants of Chiloe told me that this petrel 

 was very irregular in its movements ; sometimes they appeared in vast 

 numbers, and the next day not one was to be seen. At Port Famine, 

 every morning and evening, a long band of these birds continued to fly 

 with extreme rapidity, up and down the central parts of the channel, 

 close to the surface of the water. Their flight was direct and vigorous, 

 and they seldom glided with extended wings in graceful curves, like most 

 other members of this family. Occasionally, they settled for a short 

 time on the water; and they thus remained at rest during nearly the 

 whole of the middle of the day. When flying backwards and forwards, 

 at a distance from the shore, they evidently were fishing : but it was rare 

 to see them seize prey. They are very wary, and seldom approach 

 within gun-shot of a boat or of a ship ; a disposition strikingly different 

 from that of most of the other species. The stomach of one, killed near 

 Port Famine, was distended with seven prawn-like crabs and a small 

 fish. In another, killed off the Plata, there was the beak of a small cuttle- 

 fish. I observed that these birds, when only slightly winged, were quite 

 incapable of diving. There is no difference in the plumage of the sexes. 

 The web between the inner toes, with the exception of the margin, is 

 'reddish-lilac-purple/ the rest being blackish. Legs and half of the 

 lower mandible blackish purple. From accounts which I have received, 

 the individuals of this species, which live in the Northern Hemisphere, 

 appear to have exactly the same habits as those above described." 

 (Darwin, in Voy. "Beagle," Gould, II. pp. 137-138.) 



Genus THALASSCECA Reichenbach. 



Type. 



Thalassceca, Reichenb. Natiirl. Syst. Vog. p. iv(i852); 



Salvin, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. XXV. p. 392 (1896); 



Sharpe, Hand-List Bds. I. p. 125 (1899) T. antarctica. 



Thalassoica, Coues, Proc. Acad. Sci. Philad. 1866, p. 29 



(pt.) = ( Thalassceca]. 

 ^.ipetes, Forbes, Voy. Chall. Zool. IV. pt. XI. p. 59 



(1882) T. antarctica. 



Geographical Range. The Antarctic Oceans. 



