(ESTRELATA HiESITATA. 



Occasionally, however, it extends its range to Europe, as is proved by the capture 

 of a bird at Swaffham, Norfolk, in April, 1850. There is also a specimen in 

 the Boulogne Museum, said to have been shot near the town, but its history is not 

 considered authentic (Saunders' Manual, 2nd ed., p. 745). A supposed example, 

 reported to have been killed in the county of Zips, in Hungary, is in the museum 

 at Buda-Pest, but on being submitted to Dr. Sharpe for examination, was pronounced 

 to be (E. incerta (Bull. B. 0. C, VIII., p. xxvi., 1899). 



Colonel H. W. Feilden, in the " Transactions " of the Norfolk and Norwich 

 Naturalists' Society (Vol. V., pp. 24-39, 1890), relates that specimens were sent by 

 L'Herminier from Guadeloupe to the Paris Museum, and three to Baron de Lafresnaye, 

 one of these last being subsequently received in exchange by the University Museum 

 at Cambridge. Professor Newton was therefore able to identify the species as 

 Procellaria diabolica, or " Le Diablotin," as it was named by L'Herminier. Pere du 

 Tertre, who wrote a book on the Natural History of the West Indian Islands 

 (Paris, 1666-1671), thus called the bird in consequence of its ugliness. 



(E. hcesitata is described as a very rare bird, nocturnal in its habits, and frequenting 

 rabbit-like burrows, in which the eggs are laid. The old birds, when leaving the nest at 

 night, utter a mournful cry as they go out to sea. The flesh was much prized as an 

 article of food, and the native hunters have been known to return with a dozen or more 

 birds hung round their necks. 



In 1696 Pere Labat landed in Guadeloupe, and shortly after his arrival he 

 accompanied four black hunters to the breeding-places of the " Diablotin," which he 

 also mentions as occurring in Dominica. The " Diable " arrived in the month of 

 September in Guadeloupe, where the birds occupied their burrows in pairs till the end 

 of November, when they all disappeared, and were not seen again until about the 

 middle of January. Only a single male or female remained in the holes till the month of 

 March, when the female was found with " two " nestlings, covered with a thick yellow 

 down, and resembling little balls of fat. The young birds are able to fly at the end of 

 May, when they disappear, and are not seen again till September, at which season 

 they return with great regularity. 



Colonel Feilden records a third visit to the " Soufriere " of Guadeloupe by Sieur 

 Froger, who published an account of his voyage to the Antilles and South America, at 

 Amsterdam in 1715. He relates that the negroes procured specimens of the 

 " Diablotin " for food, and how they suffered from the cold of the high 

 mountains. 



The late G. N. Lawrence requested his friend Mr. Colardeau to see if the 

 " Diablotin " still inhabited the island of Guadeloupe, and learned that though it was 

 still believed to exist, the old hunting parties with dogs and negroes were things of 

 the past. In 1791 Mr. Thomas Atwood wrote a history of the island of Dominica, 

 and compared the " Diablotin " to an Owl from its nocturnal habits and its Owl-like 



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