FORKED-TAILED PETREL. 221 



darkness either on the water, or on low rocks or islands. It also less fre- 

 quently alights on the water, or pats it with its feet, probably on account of 

 the shortness of its legs, although it frequently allows them to hang down. 

 In this it resembles the Thalassidroma pelagica, and Wilson's Petrel has a 

 similar habit during calm weather. I have seen all the three species immerse 

 their head into the water, to seize their food, and sometimes keep it longer 

 under than I had expected. 



About the first of June, the species separate, collect in numbers, and 

 return to their breeding places. I state so from the report of persons on 

 whose testimony I can rely, and who have assured me that, like the Guille- 

 mots, they revisit their haunts each spring for years in succession. They 

 now fly in front of the high rocks, in the manner of our Purple Martin 

 when it first arrives at its well known box, passing and repassing a thousand 

 times in the day, enter their dark and narrow mansions, or stand in the 

 passage, and emit their cries, as the bird just mentioned is wont to do on 

 similar occasions. Now they alight on some broad shelf, and walk as if 

 about to fall down, but with considerable ease, and at times with rapidity. 

 Now and then the mated birds approach each other, and, I believe, disgorge 

 some food into each other's mouths, although I am not absolutely certain 

 that they do so, having only observed them at such times by means of a 

 glass. They collect grasses and pebbles, of which they form a flat nest, on 

 which a single white egg is deposited, which measures an inch and a quarter 

 in length, by seven-eighths in breadth, is nearly equally rounded at both 

 ends, and looks very large for the size of the bird. When boiled, it has a 

 musky smell, but is palatable. When you pass close to the rocks in which 

 they are, you easily hear their shrill querulous notes; but the report of a gun 

 silences them at once, and induces those on the ledges to betake themselves 

 to their holes. 



The Forked-tailed Petrel, like the other species, feeds chiefly on floating 

 mollusca, small fishes, Crustacea, which they pick up among the floating sea- 

 weeds, and greasy substances, which they occasionally find around fishing- 

 boats or ships out at sea. When seized in the hand, it ejects an oily fluid 

 through the tubular nostrils, and sometimes disgorges a quantity of food. I 

 could not prevail on any of those which I had caught to take food. 



Thalassidroma Leachii, Bonap. Syn., p. 367. 



Fork-tailed Stormy Petrel, Thalassidroma Leachii, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 32G. 



Forked-tailed Petrel, Thalassidroma Leachii, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iii. p. 434. 



Male, 8, 181 



Common on the Banks of Newfoundland, and at times off the coast of 



