52 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSKUM. 



Though generally silent when offshore, when squahbling for food the Cape 

 Pigeon at times gives a grating chatter. It occasionally will plunge almost 

 or quite under water after some tit-bit, but usually sits on or flutters eagerly 

 along the surface when feeding. 



Dr. E. A. Wilson (1907) says: 



No other petrel is so common in the Southern Oceans, and probably no other 

 is so easily taken by thread entanglements. It feeds upon minute crustaceans, 

 most of which appear to be coloured with the bright orange pigment that is 

 so marked a feature in those animals. They are freely ejected in a mucoid 

 orange-coloured mess when the bird is caught and handled, and the same 

 objectionable habit is- said to be indulged in when the birds are disturbed 

 upon their nests, six or even eight feet being given as the distance to which 

 it can be ejected, and with great precision, 



Mr. Hall (1900) says of its feeding habits: 



The cape pigeon is a fearless bird. In Greenland Harbor I observed them 

 in flocks of from 20 to 30, and at Accessible Bay found their nests. When 

 the seal-skins were being towed by the small boat, a flock of 17 would sit on 

 the water around the floating skins and vigorously peck at their edges to get 

 as much fat as possible, using all their energy in the work, and " clucking " 

 rapidly and tremulously. 



Behavior. — Keferring to the behavior of the pintado petrel, Gould 



(1865) says: 



This martin among the petrels is extremely tame, passing immediately under 

 the stern and settling down close to the sides of the ship, if fat of any kind or 

 other oily substance be thrown overboard. Swims lightly, but rarely exercises 

 its natatorial powers except to procure food, in pursuit of which it occasionally 

 dives for a moment or two. Nothing can be more graceful than Its motions 

 while on the wing, with the neck shortened, and the legs entirely hidden among 

 the feathers of the under tail coverts. 



Earlier he wrote (1841) : 



Their flight is not rapid, but elegant; and as these . prettily mottled birds skim 

 the. surface of the water in graceful curves, constantly following the vessel as 

 she drives onward in her course, they afford a spectacle which is beheld by 

 everyone with interest. Although often spending the whole day on the wing 

 yet on a fine moonlight night, I have repeatedly seen these birds following the 

 wake of a vessel, with their usual graceful evolutions. 



Mr. J. T. Nichols ha^sent me the following notes on this petrel: 

 The strongly marked, usually omnipresent cape pigeon is the most conspicuous 

 and best known pelagic bird of the southern temperate oceans. A sailing ship 

 in these regions is commonly attended by about half a dozen of them, crossing 

 her wake, hanging above and to one side of her high stern deck, circling about 

 her One swings out until almost lost to view in the ocean dis ances to come 

 circling back about the ship again. »LduLeh, to come 



Rounding .the Horn in a merchant sailing ship on one occasion wHen they 

 were seen daily almost without exception from the time when t^e region of 



m same ln,ivid.al,s pf this or pther species sTa^'^^li^^ s^-hV^ ra^ny d";: 



