210 The Zoologist— May, 1866. 



and of three hundred yards or more in breadth ; the birds were not 

 scattered, but were flying as compactly as a free movement of their 

 wings seemed to allow ; and during a full hour and a /m//'this stream 

 of petrels continued to pass without interruption at a rate little inferior 

 to the swiftness of the jjigeon. On the lowest computation I think the 

 number could not have been less than a hundred millions. Taking the 

 stream to have been fifty yards deep by three hundred in width, and that 

 it moved at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and allowing nine cubic 

 yards of space to each bird, the number would amount to 151,500,000. 

 The burrows required to lodge this quantity of birds would be 

 75,750,000; and allowing a square yard to each burrow, they would 



cover something more than 18A geographic square miles of ground.'" 



* * '* * * * * 



"The little settlement on Vansittart's or Guncarriage Island, one of 

 the Flinder's Islands group in Bass's Straits, lies in a cove on one side 

 sandy, but on the other closed in by huge granite rocks, behind which 

 the sealers have built their houses, and which serve also to shelter 

 •their boats from the sea. Tucker's (the chief settler's) house was 

 comfortable enough. His wife was a Hindoo woman from Calcutta, 

 active and industrious, who kept it in good order. The other men had 

 native wives or ' gins,' as they called them, from Australia and Van 

 Dieuien's Land. 



" Their original occupation was sealing, for these islands formerly 

 swarmed with seals. In the course of time these animals became 

 exterminated, and now their principal Hvelihood is derived from the 

 mutton birds, which are found here in incredible numbers. These 

 birds, called also sooty or shorttailed petrels iPujffinns brevicaudus, 

 Gould, B. Austr. vii. ])1. 56), have such long wings that, like the alba- 

 tross, the largest of their tribe, they have great difficulty in rising from 

 the ground when settled ; and it is this peculiarity that makes their 

 capture so easy. They build in holes in the ground. The islands 

 which they frequent are burrowed over in all directions, just like a 

 rabbit-warren. They arrive in huge flocks about the 21st of September, 

 generally to the day, to prepare their holes and clean them out. 

 There is treu)endous fighting and quarrelling for these holes. When 

 the birds have arrived a lew days their tracks or pathways begin to be 

 apparent, or, as the sealers say, ' they begin to show their runs,' for 

 they go down to the sea every morning. The sealers then dig a large 

 pit in one of the main runs, with small fences on each side leading 

 down to it, like a fimnel. When all is ready, some morning at day- 



