360 PROtHZtkRUDM. 



one inch and three quarters long, by one inch and five sixteenths 

 broad." (Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. ii., p. 417.) 



Hal. Cape York, Rockingham Bay, New South Wales, Victoria 

 and South Australia,, West and South- West Australia, South 

 Goast New Guinea, f Ramsay.) 



Family PROCELLARIIDiE. 



Genus NECTEIS, Bonaparte. 

 ^ NECTRIS BREVICAUDUS, Brandt. 



Short-tailed Petrel. 

 Gould, Hwndhk. Bds. Aust., Vol. ii., sp. 636, p. 459. 



This Petrel is found on the eastern and southern coasts of 

 Australia, and is particularly plentiful on the islands of Bass's 

 Straits and Tasmania. On Phillip Island, in Western Port Bay, 

 Victoria, it arrives in thousands, usually on the evening of the 24th 

 of November, to deposit its single egg in a burrow in the earth, 

 which is often from three to four feet in length. On the morning 

 of the 25th and for several days after, the place is like a fair, the 

 fishermen from the Bay and Usually a number of visitors from 

 Melbourne and elsewhere, being busily engaged in extracting the 

 eggs from the burrows, which to a novice is no easy task. During 

 a recent visit to the breeding grounds of this species two 

 experienced fishermen took no less than sixty dozen eggs in one 

 day. Notwithstanding the great amount of eggs and birds 

 annually taken, there seems to be no diminution in their 

 numbers, and they resort to the same places to breed regularly 

 year after year. 



The eggs are pure white and vary in form from true ovals to 

 elongated and pointed ovals. Six selected from over a hundred 

 specimens measure as follows : — length (A) 2'81 x 1'98 inches; 

 (B) 2-95 X 1-9 inches ; (C) 2-87 x 1-9 inches ; (D) 2-97 x 1-75 

 inches; (E) 27 x 1-85 inches; (F) 2-75 x 1'85 inches. 



