THE COLLARED PETREL. 439 



neglecta, but tail more graduated outer feathers being 40 mm. 

 shorter than central. 



Soft parts. — Bill black ; legs and basal half of toes and webs 

 flesh colour (in dried skin yellowish), distal half black (Hartert). 

 Characters. — No subspecies. Definite black " cap " and size 

 distinguish it from other British Petrels. 



Breeding-habits. — Formerly bred in burrows in interior of islands 

 in dense forest at about 2000 ft. altitude, but no details of nesting 

 or eggs available. 

 Food. — No definite records. 



Distribution. — England. — One. Caught on a heath, Southacre, 

 near Swaffham (Norfolk), March or April, 1850 (Newton, Zool, 1852, 

 p. 3691). 



Distribution. — Abroad. — Formerly breeding on Hayti and Lesser 

 Antilles and not rare in West Indies, straying to United States and 

 Canada, France, and England. Having been driven from its 

 breeding-places it is now almost, if not quite, extinct ; last one 

 killed in United States in 1898. 



PTERODROMA BREVIPES 



347. Pterodroma brevipes (Peale)— THE COLLARED PETREL.* 



Procellaria brevipes Peale, U.S. Expl. Exp., viii, pp, 294, 337, pi. 80 

 (1848— Pacific Ocean, lat. 68° S., long. 95° W.). 

 (Estrelata brevipes (Peale), Saunders, p. 747. 



Description. — Adult male and female. Winter and summer. — 

 Fore -head mostly white in fresh plumage but when worn spotted 

 dark-brown, feathers being black-brown with wide white edges ; 

 fore -part of crown with narrow white edges, rest of crown and nape 

 black-brown slightly tinged ash-grey when fresh ; upper-mantle 

 washed ash-grey, tips of feathers darker and browner, rest of 

 mantle, short upper scapulars, back and upper tail-coverts 

 ash-grey, feathers faintly tipped paler and shafts dark ; patch 

 on rump and long lower scapulars black-brown slightly tinged 

 grey ; lores white but feathers in front of eye tipped black-brown, 

 under eye and sides of neck black-brown extending forwards 



* Mr. T. Iredale states {Ibis, 1914, p. 435) that the British-taken 

 specimen now in the British Museum does not belong to this species but he 

 does not state how it differs. The under-parts, except for the chin and throat, 

 which are white, are darker than in other specimens I have seen and almost 

 uniform, the feathers having such long grey-brown tips that the white bases are 

 concealed, the axillaries and under tail-coverts are grey-brown with some fine 

 white mottlings. In all other respects including its measurements (wing worn 

 about 210 mm., tail 96, tarsus 28, middle toe with claw 34, bill 23) the bird is 

 like other examples examined. J. MacGillivray {Zool., 1860, p. 7134) describes 

 some birds as having the whole under-parts from the upper-breast grey and 

 it is obvious that the species is polymorphic in the colouring of its under-parts 

 as is P. neglecta. — H.F.W. 



