244 BIRDS OF AEDERXEY. 



which abounds. On one visit, on the 30th May, one of our boatmen took 

 from a nest a young gull, still in the down, but sufficiently grown to run 

 about. I possess two very small eggs taken at Burhou ; they are no 

 larger than those of the Arctic Tern, and look very like them, so that at 

 the first glance I thought they were. 



Great Blaek-baeked Gull.— To my knowledge this gull breeds on Ortach 

 Rock, on the Nannel Rocks, and on the Renonquet Rocks, but only very 

 sparingly in the last two stations. I have had a clutch of three of these 

 fine eggs (the largest of the British Gulls) brought me as early as the 

 second week in May. 



Storm Petrel. — Breeds on the island of Burhou in great numbers. I have 

 taken eggs there from the 28th of May to the 5th of July, but at the 

 latter date all the eggs were hard sat, and consequently extremely difficult 

 to blow, for the shells of Storm Petrel's eggs are thinner and more 

 fragile than any I know of the same size. In 1901, at least one pair of 

 these birds bred on the Garden Rocks at the south-western point of 

 Alderney, for the bird was captured on the nest, and the egg taken. This 

 is an unrecorded breeding station. On one occasion, as I held in my hand 

 one of these curious little web-footed birds, it suddenly spouted from its 

 beak a quantity of oil, which had no offensive odour, at least to my per- 

 ception, although two friends w r ho were with me declared they could smell 

 a Petrel a yard or more away. When I was forced to pass a night on the 

 lonely islet of Burhou in 1899, I made two interesting observations on 

 these birds; the first was that their peculiar wailing cry, Kerek-oo, Kerek-oo, 

 is kept up throughout the night as the birds sit on their nests ; and 

 secondly, that although Storm Petrels are never seen on land during the 

 daytime, they fly about after dark just like bats. 





