103 



Mr. Alan Jackson, writing from Naseby on the 19th May, 1899, says of this species: "I 

 found one of these birds in a gully being worried by a hawk (Circus goulcli). The hawk was 

 prancing round and driving in at it every now and then, for all the world like a fighting cock in 

 full play ; the Petrel was on guard all the time, but was undoubtedly getting the worst of it, the 

 hawk being taller and more upright. I drove off the hawk and secured the poor victim, which 

 seemed perished with cold, there being about six inches of snow on the ground. I was astonished 

 at finding such a bird so far inland." 



At Stewart Island Mrs. Hensen gave me an egg avowedly of this Petrel. It measures 2'37 

 inches by 1*87 ; narrowly ovoido-elliptical in shape ; originally white, it had become soiled by 

 contact with the bird's feet. 



PUFFINUS CARNEIPES. 



(FLESH-FOOTED SHEARWATEE.) 



Puffinus carneipes (Gould), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 234. 



By the kindness of Mr. Eeeves, the lighthouse-keeper on Mokohinu Island (in the Hauraki Gulf), 

 I have obtained a pair of these birds in spirit. The species appears to have a strictly northern 

 range, for I have never heard of a specimen further south than the Bay of Plenty, where there is 

 a breeding colony of them, although in a very inaccessible place, on the Island of Karewa. 

 Dr. Kamsay writes (' Proc. Lin. Soc, N.S.W.', vol. hi., p. 406) : — 



This species of Puffinus represents on the N.S.W. coast the Nectris brevicaudus, of South Australia, and 

 is as numerous in certain places as that species is there. 



Among other places they frequent the Solitary Islands in great numbers during the breeding season, which 

 lasts from September to December. Through the kindness of James Barnett, Esq., the Colonial Architect, I 

 have received from Messrs. MacLeod, Jennings, and Murray, a fine series of these birds and their eggs. 



The birds arrived early in September, and at once betook themselves to excavating their nesting-holes, 

 which are short burrows in the ground, about six inches in diameter and twelve to twenty inches in length. 

 In no instance was more than one egg obtained in a burrow. The males and females assist each other 

 in incubation ; out of five specimens of birds taken from the burrows, four proved to be females. There 

 is no difference in the plumage of the sexes. The eggs are apparently laid at night ; the birds arrive 

 in countless numbers in the evening, and most of them, the males probably, or those not engaged in hatching, 

 return to the sea at daylight in the morning. As many as twenty dozen eggs have been taken on a single 

 morning, the workmen at the lighthouse finding them a very delicious article of food. Their average weight 

 is 2 oz. ; the lightest and smallest sent me weighed 1'5 oz. They are usually of an oval form, 2 '4 in. in 

 length by 1*6 in. in breadth, of a pure white colour and of a smooth fine grain.* One specimen sent to me by 

 Mr. MacLeod is more pointed at the thin end, and had very light brown irregular blotches on the thicker end. 

 The shell is slightly different in texture and may belong to a species of Tern ; nevertheless, it was obtained in 

 one of the Shearwaters' burrows. 



* The eggs of Puffinus chlororhynchus, Lesson, were erroneously described as those of P. carneipes, from the Seal 

 Eocks, off the New South Wales coast, near Port Stephens. ('P.L.S., N.S.W.', vol. iii., p. 204.) 





