l\L 



summer at the top of the mountains as high up as 5000 feet, where they had their 

 nests in long burrows, but that in the last ten years they have become rare, as the 

 foreign rats kill them in their nests." 



If Dr. Finsch is correct as to the genus, the subjoined account ('Ibis,' 1880, p. 81) 

 may also refer to this species; but only future investigations can determine this with 

 certainty. He says : — " I also got information of a very curious bird, which the natives 

 call ' JJ-au' According to the description it breeds in holes underground on the 

 mountains, resorting to its nesting-place only at night. I do not doubt that the bird is 

 a species of Puffinus, as similar habits are known of allied species in the Fijis, Navigators' 

 Islands, Tahiti, &c. To obtain information of this species, which Mr. Dole enumerates 

 as ' Procellaria alba, Gm.,' I made a day's trip to a part of the Northern Haleakala 

 ranges [in Maui], where the birds were said to be breeding. Although I took the best 

 guide I could get, we found nothing but a few old holes under the ferns and an old 

 dried-up white egg. The species remains, therefore, still uncertain ; but I have no 

 doubt that it is the same which I saw soaring in evening-time on the rocky coast near 

 Lahama. The bird looked black, white below, and reminded me of Puffinus obscurus." 



Description (translated from that of Mr. Salvin). — Above sooty ; crown, lower back, 

 lesser wing-coverts, and remiges darker, feathers of the upper back bordered with sooty 

 colour of a pale tint, greater wing-coverts tinged with grey at the tips : beneath — 

 whitish in the middle part ; sides of the throat and neck grey, breast and flanks also of 

 this colour, entire lower belly and vent darker ; under wing-coverts whitish, very slightly 

 marked with grey ; tail wedge-shaped, black : beak dull lead-colour ; feet yellow, 

 darker on the outer part. Total length 17*0 inches, of wing 11-8, of middle tail- 

 feathers 5'3, of lateral 3 - 65, of beak from gape 2 - 2, from nostrils 1*2, of exposed culmen 

 1*6, of tarsus T85, of middle toe with claw 2 - 32. 





