24 BIRDS OF KEEGUELEN ISLAND. 



Bill pearl-gray, with a flesh-tint, to pale bone-yellow. 



Iris dark. 



Head dirty-brown, lighter than the rest of the body, with white spot 

 of variable extent on the chin. 



Body generally very dark-brown, the under parts being lighter than 

 the upper. Feathers on belly and under side of wings tipped with red- 

 dish-brown. Testicles very small December 14 in No. 155. Stomach 

 membranous. 



Tail fan-shaped. 



Tarsus and foot dirty-black, brownish-gray in young. Tibia naked 

 for 2.35 inches. 



Claws streaked-black and yellowish-white. Distinct hind claw. 



The "Nellies", as the whalers call them, were first seen in the bay by 

 our station on October 3, after which date they became quite com- 

 mon. One was shot October 5 while flying over, but the specimen 

 was not preserved. It was a female, and apparently a young bird, the 

 flesh being unusually soft and pale. The sealers told me that they 

 nested near by, and began to lay late in December. I found the young 

 birds, however, on January 2, in the hollows between clumps of Azorella, 

 almost fledged, and quite as large and heavy as the adults. They are 

 exceedingly filthy birds, ejecting the contents of their stomachs for two 

 or three feet from their bodies, ana seeming to have a limitless supply 

 to draw upon. Among the vomited matters I noticed many penguin- 

 feathers. No old birds were to be seen at the time. Several young 

 were found near together, and three were secured as specimens. In the 

 same neighborhood was a young bird of an earlier brood, fully fledged, 

 but not yet able to fly. Unless, therefore, there is more than one brood 

 in a season, these petrels must be among the earliest to lay, instead of 

 one of the latest, as we had been told. 



I found the adult birds, in considerable numbers, feeding on the car- 

 cass of the sea elephant, December 14. With their huge whitish beaks, 

 lighter-colored heads (then covered with clotted blood), and disordered 

 dun plumage, they reminded me strongly of vultures. Like vultures, 

 also, they had so crammed themselves that they were unable to rise 

 from the ground, although it was sufliciently rocky and irregular for 

 them to do so with ease under ordinary circumstances. They waddled 

 and stumbled to the sea, swam away, and did not rise into the air until 

 half an hour or more of digestion, and perhaps of vomiting, had made it 

 possible. I shot two on this occasion; but one succeeded in getting into 



