GARRODIA NEREIS. 



under overhanging clumps of grass and " Kerguelen tea " (Accena ascendens) in low 

 swampy ground near the sea. 



The present species ranges to the Falkland Islands, but has not yet been found 

 breeding there. Captain Abbott states that one of these Storm-Petrels was picked up 

 dead in March, 1858 (Ibis, 1861, p. 164), and Salvin also received a specimen from the 

 Falkland Islands Company, which is now in the British Museum (cf. Salvin, Cat. Birds 

 Brit. Mus., XXV., p. 362). 



During the breeding season the birds become very fat, according to Dr. Kidder 

 (I. c), who says that they are strictly crepuscular in their habits, and therefore 

 none were seen flying by daylight. Mr. Eaton says that the single specimen he 

 captured had the Crake-like call of O. oceanicus. 



In New Zealand, Sir Walter Buller relates that he was informed by Mr. Percy 

 Seymour that the nests were placed in burrows resembling rat-holes about 15 in. 

 deep. All the sitting birds he found were females, whereas all those captured by 

 Dr. Kidder were males. 



Like other species of Petrels, G. nereis is sometimes blown inland by stress of 

 weather, and Sir Walter Buller mentions an instance of a foot-passenger on the 

 Wanganui Bridge in New Zealand, catching a specimen with his hands as it flew past, 

 and on another occasion a bird was captured some miles inland while flitting round the 

 wood fire of a bushman's camp. 



Five eggs of G. nereis are in the British Museum. One collected by Dr. H. 0. 

 Forbes in the Chatham Islands is white, dusted with reddish dots and underlying dots 

 of lilac ; axis, 1.35 inch ; diam. 0.95. Four more specimens have been presented 

 by Mr. Philip Crowley. The locality was said to have been the Southern Ocean, but no 

 further information is forthcoming. They are larger than the Chatham Island 

 specimen, and one is much rounder in shape. These four specimens are pure white, 

 but with scarcely any spots or markings whatever. 



Adult female. General colour above dark ashy-grey, rather lighter towards the 

 rump and upper tail-coverts, the latter with blackish shafts and a slight indication of 

 dusky tips, the outer coverts somewhat whitish near the base ; tail-feathers also ashy- 

 grey, with black shafts and a distinct black bar at the ends ; scapulars grey like the back, 

 the bases pale grey, and the longer feathers darker and more blackish grey ; wing- 

 coverts for the most part black, the greater series ashy, with white fringes at the ends ; 

 bastard- wing, primary-coverts and quills, blackish, shaded with ashy-grey, and with 

 black shafts, the inner webs of the quills hoary-white towards the base ; head and neck 

 blackish, extending over the mantle, the forehead slightly browner ; sides of face like 

 the crown ; throat and chest slightly more dusky brown, this extending to the sides of 

 the upper breast ; rest of under-surface of body pure white, including the under 

 tail-coverts, the lateral coverts being freckled or barred with dusky ; under wing- 

 coverts for the most part white, with a broad black band round the entire margin of 



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