219 



LEACH S PETREL. 



(Procellaria Leachii.) 



Pk. cauda subfurcata. 



Petrel with the tail slightly forked. 



Petrel de Leach. — Procellaria Leachii. Temm. man. d'Om. 



2 Edit. ii. 812. 

 Leach's Petrel. Lath. Gen. Hist. x. 194. 



Length seven inches and a half: beak and legs 

 black : head and body dull black : sides of the belly 

 and upper tail-coverts white, with the shafts of the 

 feathers brown ; wing-coverts dusky brown : quills 

 and tail black, the last somewhat forked. 



The first specimen known of this bird was in the 

 splendid collection of Mr. Bullock, who killed it in 

 the island of St. Kilda, one of the Hebrides. At the 

 period of the dispersion of his cabinet, my friend, Dr. 

 Leach, observed, that the bird was distinct from the 

 Stormy Petrel, and purchased it for the British Mu- 

 seum, as an addition to the indigenous collection 

 of animals, &c. preserved there. Temminck has, 

 in consequence, named it after him, as a mark of 

 honour due to so keen a zoologist. A second spe- 

 cimen has been killed on the coast of Picardy in 

 France. In November, 1823, a specimen was brought 

 to the London market alive : and in the succeeding 

 month one was killed in Devonshire, and another in 

 Hertfordshire. 



It is said not to be uncommon in the isle of St. 

 Kilda ; that it lays a single white egg, in a hole of a 



