732 MADEIRAN FORK-TAILED PETREL. 
September, and another was taken at Kobbergrunden in the 
Kattegat, on the 11th of October. The principal haunts of this 
species appear to be the waters and the islets of the Cape Verde 
group, and those round Madeira and Porto Santo, notably the 
Desertas already mentioned, as well as the Salvages, which also 
belong to Portugal, though rather nearer to the Canaries, and on 
all of these it breeds. 
On his visit to the Salvages, in the spring of 1895, Mr. Grant was 
rather too early for eggs, but he subsequently obtained one from the 
Lime Island, Porto Santo, takenin June. It is described as “‘ white, 
with an indistinct zone of light red and faint purplish underlying 
dots round the larger end”: measurements 1°3 by ‘96 in. (Ibis 1896, 
p- 54). In the Cape Verde group, Mr. Boyd Alexander found 
young or much incubated eggs by the middle of March, and he 
noticed that the burrows of this species ran further into the ground 
and were also more tortuous than those of the Frigate Petrel which 
was nesting in the same locality (Ibis 1897, pp. 96-97). At night 
the birds flitted about, uttering a note which Mr. Boyd Alexander 
renders as “I’m a nigger, I’m a nigger, I’m a nigger.” 
In this species the tail is only slightly forked, the outer feathers 
being little longer than the middle pair; while the upper tail- 
coverts are white, tipped with black, and there is a considerable 
amount of white at the bases of the tail-feathers. Otherwise the 
Madeiran Petrel is very similar to Leach’s Petrel. Mr. Grant says 
that the female is decidedly larger than the male ; her wing averaging 
5°98 in., whereas that of the male is 5°8 in. 
