PELECANOIDES URINATRIX. 



the Little Auk (Mergulus alle) of the northern oceans, and has the same habit of 

 diving, fishing and flying. How great is the resemblance may be gathered from the 

 fact, that labels attached to the specimens procured by the first Antarctic Expedi- 

 tion were simply labelled " Auk." Darwin wrote : — " No one seeing this bird for the 

 first time, thus diving like a Grebe, and flying in a straight fine, by the rapid movements 

 of its short wings, like an Auk, would believe that it was a member of the family of 

 Petrels, the greater number of which are eminently pelagic in their habits, do not dive, 

 and whose flight is usually most graceful and continuous." He believed that the birds 

 seldom take wing during the daytime if undisturbed, but in the evenings he observed 

 them at Port Famine flying in straight lines from one part of the Sound to another. 



The food of the Diving Petrel seems to be of a varied character, consisting of small 

 marine animals, which it takes from the surface of the water, and fish, for which it 

 dives (c/. Nicoll, Ibis, 1904, p. 47), while Buller once found spores, apparently of a sea- 

 weed, in the crop of a bird (Birds New Zeal., 2nd ed., II., p. 207). 



The single white egg is laid in a burrow scraped out by the birds themselves, from 

 six to eight inches deep, under ground or under a ledge of rock. 



Adult male. General colour above glossy-black, with a faint tinge of purplish-blue, 

 the inner scapulars greyish on their inner webs and at the ends, forming an indistinct 

 line of ashy-grey on each side of the mantle ; wing-coverts and quills entirely black, 

 with indistinct margins of white on the secondaries ; tail-feathers black, the outer 

 ones indistinctly margined with greyish-white ; crown of head like the back, the lores, 

 sides of face and ear-coverts sooty-black, the cheeks ashy-grey, like the lower throat ; 

 chin and upper throat and remainder of under-surface of body pure white ; sides of 

 the fore-neck and chest indistinctly barred, the feathers having a subterminal bar of dull 

 ashy-grey, edged with white ; sides of body shaded with grey, forming a patch on the 

 lower flanks, where the feathers have dusky shaft-streaks and white margins ; under 

 wing-coverts ashy-white, with an interrupted band of dusky-brown round the bend of 

 the wing ; axillaries dusky-brown, with black shafts, and whitish tips ; quills dusky- 

 brown below, rather more ashy on the inner webs. Total length, about 8 inches ; 

 culmen, 0.6 ; wing, 4.7 ; tail, 1.55 ; tarsus, 0.9 ; middle toe and claw, 1.2. 



A nestling in the British Museum which still retains some of its down, is emerging 

 from it into the first full plumage, which resembles that of the adult, and the back 

 has a decided gloss of a dull purplish tint ; the secondaries are distinctly edged with 

 hoary-white near the ends ; tail-feathers black, narrowly edged with hoary-white, 

 which is more distinct on the outermost ; crown of head like the back ; lores and 

 sides of face white, the feathers transversely barred with slaty-grey, but less distinctly 

 on the cheeks ; throat and under-surface of the body pure white, the feathers on the 

 sides of the breast mottled with ashy-grey bases ; flanks also slightly mottled with 

 ashy-grey, with which colour many of the feathers are subterminally marked ; under 

 wing-coverts pure white ; axillaries slaty-grey, edged with white. 



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