BIRDS OF TASMANIA. 179 



our peninsula to strong gales at sea, which drove them towards 

 shore for shelter. In fact, during the strongest gale we had in the 

 autumn, they arrived at Camp Ridley the day before the gale com- 

 menced, and left immediately after it was over. So I, at least, 

 came to look upon their arrival as the sign of an approaching gale. 

 These large birds, which in their flight much resemble the Alba- 

 tross, vary somewhat in their colour perhaps as much as 

 the Lestris from dark brown to light faded brown ; and 

 albinos are occasionally seen. I secured one of these 

 latter, and Captain Jensen secured another. We had both 

 of us great difficulty in securing a specimen. A noble, 

 rare bird as he is, he seemed to soar about higher and more 

 lonely than the rest, and remarkable was it that an albino, 

 although of exactly the same species as the dark one, was seldom 

 or never seen in its company. Whether this is because the others 

 combine against him and hunt him because of his whiteness, or 

 because he, in modest ignorance of his value, seeks his own sphere, 

 I do not know, but certain is it that he willingly or compulsorily 

 soars about in higher regions than the rest." 



Mr. Burn-Murdoch, who was on the Balaena on the " Edin- 

 burgh to the Antarctic" Expedition, gives the following note on 

 the species : " A number of Nellies, or Giant Petrels, come circling 

 over us as we slowly drift from our shelter to leeward. They gorge 

 themselves with the ' cran ' (scraps of seal's flesh cut off the 

 blubber this name is also given to the carcass of the seal when it 

 is skinned and the blubber has been stripped off), that is constantly 

 being thrown over our sides, then fly back to the sea and sit beside 

 their Penguin friends. Strange, ugly birds they are, the apparent 

 coarseness of their build, and their grey-green, clumsy beaks and 

 rough brown feathers, give the impression that nature has turned 

 them out in a very wholesale fashion. Some of them are appar- 

 ently white, and a few of the same kind of bird, I believe perhaps 

 one in twenty are pure white, all but one or two brown feathers. 

 The different stages of colouring are rather like those of the 

 Gannet. We call them ' scavengers.' " 



*CAPE PETREL (CAPE PIGEON) 

 (Daption capensis, Linn.) 



Male. Head and hind-neck black; sides of shoulders and 

 sides of neck black ; central upper tail coverts white, conspicuously 

 spotted with black; tail feathers white, with a broad terminal black 

 band; marginal wing coverts black; inner wing coverts white, 

 spotted similarly to shoulders; primaries black, with inner webs 

 white ; outer secondaries white ; inner also white, tipped with 

 black; chin black; throat-white, mottled with black; rest of under 

 surface white. 



Female. Similar to male. 



