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^ESTRELATA LEUCOCEPHALA 



WHITE-HEADED PETREL. Genus: ^Estrelata. 



J 1 1HIS is the most powerful and the most picturesque flier of all the Petrels. It never soberly follows 

 in the wake of ships like its more business-like brethren, but may be seen at intervals at a 

 great distance, by reason of its pure white head and under parts, advancing at hurricane speed from the 

 horizon. When it overtakes the ship, it wheels through and round and high above the attendant flock 

 with beautiful evolutions, its long, narrow, darkly-coloured wings, in their powerful strokes, looking like 

 a great letter W, closing and unclosing in its swift circles. It seldom nears the ship, being wild and 

 timid, but, having perhaps obtained some floating particles of food, soon wings away over the sea in 

 some fresh direction. 



From its only occasional and hurried visits to the neighbourhood of ships, and its wary nature, 

 specimens are hard to obtain ; Gould gives an interesting account of how he drew one within shot by 

 exercising its curiosity as to the nature of a bottle which was thrown out astern and was kept bobbing, 

 with only the neck exposed, by means of a string attached. 



Forehead, face, the whole of the under surface and tail, white; back part of the head and neck, 

 grey: wings, dark brown, approaching to black; back, dark greyish-brown; eye encircled by a' black mark 

 bill, black; legs, toes and webs, flesh-colour; the tips of the toes, black. 



Habitats : Like the other wandering members of this great family it ranges over a vast extent 

 of the southern seas, appearing to favour the colder latitudes, although occasionally met with in Bass's 

 and Cook's Straits. 



