ELUSIVE PETRELS. 



223 



with eggs on May 12th, Colonel Feilden obtained eggs of 

 this bird in Barbados in March. 



In April, 1906, while at sea half way between the 

 Hermanos group and the island of Haiti, we fell in with 

 one or two large flocks of a " medium-sized shearwater " 

 which I was unable to identify with certainty. Possibly 

 they were only Audubon's, although they seemed some- 

 what large for this species, and certainly too small for 

 another found in the West Indies, to wit Puffinus gravis. 

 But whether they were or not, and whether or not they 

 were making for our islets, we still like to fancy that some- 

 where or other among " the Seven Brothers " there still 

 exists a rare race of " Diahlotins'' that ghost- like race of 

 devil-birds of which the West Indian negro, with his super- 

 stitious notions, had such strange tales and half true ideas. 



To show how easy it would be for the remnants of such 

 a race to wander upon the sea unidentified, and where 

 their existence for years might be unsuspected, if only 

 their home had been undiscovered, to say nothing of the 

 difficulty there always is of procuring examples of strange 

 birds at sea even when recognised, we may relate that 

 on one occasion, while crossing the Atlantic with Sir 

 Frederic Johnstone in his yacht " Zenaida," a petrel flew 

 on board on the last day of 1905, and was so damaged 

 that it was easily caught. I made a " skin " of this bird, 

 and it proved to be an example of a very rare petrel, 

 (Estrelata arminjoniana — which has its only home in the 

 island of South Trinidad, thousands of miles away in the 

 South Atlantic* When it came on board we were in 

 lat. 21° 51' N., long. 43° 35' W., seven days out from 

 Madeira, and roughly twelve hundred miles north of the 

 equator. By an almost miraculous chance it happened 

 to fall foul of our rigging, but had it not done so and paid 

 the penalty, what man, were he never so wise in the 

 discrimination of strange birds, would ever have suspected 

 the presence of such a stranger ? 



* For an interesting account of this bird in its island home see 

 that of Mr. M. J. Nicoll in " Three Voyages of a NaturaHst." 



