32 
AN AUSTRALIAN BIRD BOOK. 
58 Royal Albatross, D. regia, A., T., N.Z. Seas. c. ocean 44 
Lately separated from 57, because young have white down 
instead of gray; adult has no zigzag lines; f., sim. 
Food see 57. 
59 Black-browed Albatross (Mollymawk), D, melano- 
phrys, S. Oceans, England (once). v.c. ocean 32 
Darwin thought that the most numerous of birds was a Petrel. 
One of great interest is the "Mutton-Bird," or Short-tailed Petrel. 
This romantic bird breeds by the million on Cape Woolamai and 
other places about Bass Strait. 
Just as the mallee farmer is dependent on his annual wheat 
harvest, so the remarkable colony of people living on Cape barren 
Island is entirely dependent on the annual Mutton-Bird harvest. 
They claim to take about a million and a half birds each year. 
The number is probably much exaggerated, for Littler, in his 
valuable Birds of Tasmania, gives the number as 555,000 for 
1909, valued at about £4000. Bass and Flinders were glad to 
replenish their stores with young Mutton-Birds. Flinders calcu- 
lated that one flock of these birds he met in Bass Strait contained 
132,000,000 birds. They lay but one egg, so one would expect 
the Petrel to be long-lived. We found a closely-similar bird 
nesting on Mast Head Island, Capricorn Group. 
The three southern Diving Petrels, forming the next family, 
are much smaller than the common Petrels. They are expert 
divers, and are found mainly in the far South. 
