PLATE 



IX I IX. 



FAMILY PROCELLARIDxE. 



AMONG the Natatores which inhabit Australia, this extensive family embraces a larger number of 

 varieties than any other. From their vast diversity in form and their roving habits, which render 

 definite classification so difficult, more confusion exists as to the number of genera represented in this 

 group than in any other family in our Ornithology. In preparing the illustrations of its members, the 

 strictest attention has been observed that only those varieties shall be shown which have beyond all doubt 

 been proved to make their home on our shores, or to frequent regularly the seas which surround us. 



As the traveller nears Australia, long before he sights the coast, flocks of birds, many of them 

 belonging to this group, always constitute his first acquaintance with the animal life of this continent. 

 The most unscientific and unobservant cannot fail to be struck with wonder and admiration at these legions 

 that follow and circle round the ship for hundreds of miles, by night and day, in storm and sunshine, the 

 embodiment in so many forms of grace, speed, and tireless endurance. 



The stately Albatros, with its huge spread of snowy or dusky wing, is the most marked among 

 this tribe. The majority of the remaining varieties are commonly grouped under the popular name of 

 Petrels, from the giant Ossifraga, or " Break-bones," a bird as large as the smaller Albatroses, to the 

 tiny ThalassidromcB, or " Sea Runners,'' so called because while skimming the sea in their search for food 

 they let down their feet and run along the surface, lightly tapping the water for a considerable distance. 

 In fact, the term Petrel was bestowed with reference to the Apostle Peter's walking on the sea. Among 

 this tribe, too, are some which, according to time-honoured authority, still control the fate of a ship and 

 foretell disaster. The sailor who respects tradition looks upon the slaying of an Albatros as placing the 

 seal of fate upon his ship, while the Stormy Petrels, "Mother Carey's Chickens," appear seized with the 

 spirit of a coming storm, wheeling round the ship with shrill cries in which the sailor versed in augury 

 reads danger gathering round the vessel. 



The food of the ProcellaridcB consists of sea creatures of low organization, floating crustaceans and 

 the like, and the refuse thrown overboard from ships, particularly when it is of a fatty nature. 



GENUS PELAGODROMA (Reichenbach). 



THE bold markings of the one example of this species lender it easily distinguishable from its companions 

 among the winged attendants of ships sailing in the seas which it frequents ; this is the only example 

 of the species. 



PELAGODROMA FEEGATA. 



WHITE-FACED STORM PETREL. Genus: Pelagodhoma. 



QJPECIMENS of this variety have been obtained in various localities so distant from each other as to 

 ^ prove that it ranges over a great extent of ocean. Like all the Petrels, it flies to vast distances 

 from land, and subsists in the same manner by picking up floating marine organisms, the refuse thrown 

 from ships, and such food as it can obtain on the surface of the ocean in its long flights. 



