PUFFINUS TENUIROSTRIS. 



about ten days, forming their burrows and preparing for the ensuing laying-season. 

 They then leave, and continue at sea for about five weeks." 



" About the 20th of November at sunset, a few come in to lay, and gradually 

 increase in numbers until the night of the 24th. Still there are comparatively few, 

 and a person would find some difficulty in collecting two dozen eggs on the morning of 

 that day." 



"It is not in my power to describe the scene that presents itself at Green Island 

 on the night of the 24th of November. A few minutes before sunset flocks are seen 

 making for the island from every quarter, and that with a rapidity hardly conceivable ; 

 when they congregate together, so dense is the cloud, that night is ushered in full ten 

 minutes before the usual time. The birds continue flitting about the island for nearly 

 an hour, and then settle upon it. The whole island is burrowed ; and when I state that 

 there are not sufficient burrows for one-fourth of the birds to lay in, the scene of noise 

 and confusion that ensues may be imagined — I will not attempt to describe it. On the 

 morning of the 25th the male birds take their departure, returning again in the evening, 

 and so they continue to do until the end of the season. . . . Every burrow on the island 

 contains, according to its size, from one to three or four birds, and as many eggs ; one 

 is the general rule. At least three-fourths of the birds lay under the bushes, and the 

 eggs are so numerous that great care must be taken to avoid treading upon them. The 

 natives from Flinders generally five for some days on Green Island at this time of the 

 year for the purpose of collecting the eggs, and again in March or April for curing the 

 young birds. . . . Besides Green Island, the principal rookeries of these birds are 

 situated between Flinder's Island and Cape Barren, and most of the smaller islands in 

 the Furneaux group. The eggs and cured birds form a great portion of the food of 

 sealers, and, together with the feathers, constitute the principal articles of their traffic. 

 The mode by which the feathers are obtained has been described to me as follows : — 

 ' The birds cannot rise from the ground, but must first go into the water ; in effecting 

 which they make numerous tracks to the beach similar to those of a kangaroo ; these 

 are stopped before morning, with the exception of one leading over a shelving bank, at 

 the bottom of which is dug a pit in the sand ; the birds, finding all avenues closed but 

 this, follow each other in such numbers, that, as they fall into the pit, they are 

 immediately smothered by those succeeding them. It takes the feathers of forty birds 

 to weigh a pound ; consequently sixteen hundred must be sacrificed to make a 

 feather bed of forty pounds weight.' Notwithstanding the enormous annual destruction 

 of these birds, I did not, during the five years that I was in the habit of visiting the Straits, 

 perceive any sensible diminution in their number. The young birds leave the rookeries 

 about the latter end of April, and form one scattered flock in Bass's Straits. I have 

 actually sailed through them from Flinder's Island to the heads of the Tamar, a distance 

 of eighty miles. They shortly afterwards separate into dense flocks, and finally leave 

 the coast. The old birds are very oily, but the young are literally one mass of fat, 



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