3948 Birds. 



Professor Savi includes this species in his ' Ornitologia Toscana ' 

 (vol. iii. p. 40), from an example obtained in Piedmont ; and it has a 

 place also in the ' Fanne Franchise ' (p. 405), from specimens killed 

 iu Brittany and Picardy. • 



It is therefore included in the ' Birds of Europe' by M. Temminck, 

 Mr. Gould, M. Degland, and Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte : — 

 the author of the first work observing that " it is rare in the Mediter- 

 ranean, but common on the coast of Africa to the Cape of Good 

 Hope." And it may be mentioned in proof of the first part of this 

 statement, that the name of this bird does not appear in the catalogues 

 of the birds of Sicily, Malta, Tunis, Algeria or Tangiers. 



Messrs. Webb and Berthelot include the Puffinus obscurus in their 

 work on the Natural History of the Canary Islands ; and Edward 

 Vernon Harcourt, Esq., to whom I am indebted for a specimen of the 

 bird and its egg, has particularly referred to this species in his pub- 

 lished ' Sketch of Madeira,' (pp. 122 and 165). Eight or nine species 

 of the birds of this family breed on, or frequent, the Dezertas, a group 

 of small islands about eighteen miles from Madeira. " The Dusky 

 Petrel is a very tame bird, and will live upon almost anything; it runs 

 along the ground on its belly, and uses its curious-shaped bill in 

 climbing up the rocks. Those I had in my possession alive, were 

 some of them caught with fish-hooks baited with meat, by the Portu- 

 guese, and some taken by the hand in the day-time from underneath 

 stones, where they hide from the light." The egg, and they lay but 

 one, measures one inch and seven-eighths in length, by one inch and 

 three-eighths in breadth, rather smaller at one end than at the other, 

 and pure white. 



Audubon, in his ' Birds of America' (vol. vii. p. 216), and in his 

 ' Ornithological Biography ' (vol. iii. p. 620), gives an interesting ac- 

 count of the habits of this petrel on the water. He found it abundant 

 in the month of June, in the Gulf of Mexico and off' the coast east- 

 ward to Georgia, some of them wandering from Cape Florida as far 

 North as Sandy Hook and Long Island. Audubon's friend, Thomas 

 Nuttall, in his ' Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and 

 of Canada,' among other localities already quoted, mentions the North- 

 west coast of America. 



Captain Cook met with this species at Christmas Island, only 2 

 degrees North of the Equator, and about 158° W. longitude. This 

 island was so named by Cook, who landed there on Christmas-day, in 

 1777. 



