THE FORK-TAILED STORM PETREL. 425 



the range of that southward floatage in the early part of the 

 suninier, to which allusion has been made. The shallows, the 

 contrary currents, and all the characters of the seas on the 

 south-eastern parts of the island, where so much food is 

 stranded for the shore birds, do not afford support or even 

 scope for the storm petrels. 



These two species are the fork-tailed and the common 

 storm petrel, the former rather a recent addition to our 

 Fauna, probably, indeed certainly, not a rare bird, though it 

 has, no doubt, been often confounded with the other, from 

 which, to common observation, it is not very different, 

 whether seen on the wave or the wing, only the fork-tail is 

 altogether longer than the common, the tail is much longer 

 in proportion, and forked, and the bird appears to keep 

 farther to seaward. 



The chief distinctions between these birds and the other 

 petrels, besides those of size and colour, are the bill more 

 slender, the nail of it less produced, the head rounder, the 

 neck shorter, thicker, more abundantly feathered, and the 

 expression of the whole body more that of an air bird than a 

 sea bird, which in any way finds its food by using the head 

 and neck under water. They have only one opening to the 

 nasal tube. 



THE FORK-TAILED STORM PETREL 



Bullockii). 



This species was first found by Mr. Bullock in St. Kilda, 

 in the summer of 1818, and specimens have since been found 

 in other parts of the coast, but chiefly in the autumn or 

 winter, so that its breeding as a British bird is probably con- 

 fined to the more remote western isles ; but birds of this 

 genus are seldom seen at the places where they breed, as they 

 nestle in holes of the rocks ; and, though they make a sort of 



