Wanderings of a Naturalist 



petrel still incubating a hard set &gg., also two nests contain- 

 ing very small young with eyes still closed. In each case the 

 parent bird was in the hollow beside the young. One of the 

 adult birds, on being lifted out into the light, uttered a musi- 

 cal swallow-like twittering. These small chicks gave away 

 their place of concealment by cheeping loudly, although they 

 were being brooded at the time. Perhaps they longed for 

 their evening meal, although it wanted several hours to 

 sunset. We also found a youngster two or three weeks old in 

 a cranny near, but this one was quite silent. 



On August 27, a wild day with a gale of north wind, we 

 sailed out to another island and found the storm petrel nesting 

 here also. Of the young birds which we examined, one was 

 in quite a nest of dried grass; the other was lying on the bare 

 earth. On August 29 we paid our last visit to the petrels' 

 home. Again a gale of wind blew from the north, and a 

 heavy sea was running, but our boat was an exceptionally 

 seaworthy one, and we had at the helm one of the most trusty 

 of steersmen. 



On this day we discovered a new nesting site of the petrel, 

 namely a narrow cleft in the rocks strewn with fairly large 

 stones. Here we found four or five young petrels, one of 

 which — nearly four weeks old — ^was the largest we had yet 

 come across. Its wing feathers were sprouting, and even the 

 white tail feathers were showing. Its legs and feet were by 

 this time black, like those of the adult. When removed from 

 its hiding-place it flapped its wings vigorously. One could 

 plainly see the curious knob half-way down the bill — so char- 

 acteristic of the petrel family — into which the nostrils open in 

 a single aperture. Can it be that this knob is to protect fhe 

 nostrils from the spray of the waves when the bird is at sea 

 during heavy weather? 



A second young bird — found a few yards away — with eyes 

 still closed, was newly hatched, while a third was about ten 

 days old. In the fourth nest which we examined, beside the 

 young bird there still remained the egg of the previous year, 



74 



