THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
succeeding night brought more birds. They at once started to clean out their 
burrows. They go off to sea in the early dawn, and return at dusk. They 
make a peculiar whining or mewing noise when in their burrows, very like the 
noise of a cat. The flight is more hawk-hke than that of P. hrevicaudus, their 
long, thin-tipped wings giving them a more rakish appearance when on 
the wing. 
Dr. Ramsay, writing of these birds from the Solitary Islands as P. carneifes, 
states : “They are in great numbers during the breeding-season, which lasts 
from September till December. . . The birds arrived early in September, and 
at once betook themselves to excavating their nesting-holes, which are short 
burrows in the ground, about 6 in. in diameter, and 12 to 20 in. in length. In 
no instance was more than one egg obtained in a burrow ; the males and females 
assist in incubation; out of five specimens of birds taken from the burrows, 
four proved to be females. The eggs are apparently laid at night ; the birds 
arrive in countless numbers in the evening, and most of them, the males 
probably, or those not engaged in hatching, return to the sea at daylight 
in the morning. The average weight of the eggs is 2 oz. ; the lightest and 
smallest sent me weighed 1.5 oz.” 
The type figured and described is a male, found dead on Bondi Beach, 
near Sydney, on the 27th of March, 1904. 
A bird from Broughton Island, off New South Wales, kindly sent me by 
Mr. A. F. Basset Hull for examination, is very puzzling, as it has quite a small 
bill, the coloration of which, in the dried state, seems to be darker on the 
ungues, and not all uniform as given by Messrs. Campbell and White, though 
otherwise agreeing closely. In these dark Puffinus, series must be collected ; 
it is quite impossible to do anything with solitary birds. 
Mr. A. F. B. Hull,* writing on the Birds of Norfolk Island, says : “ The 
Wedge-tailed Petrel breeds on Nepean Island, which is so honeycombed that it 
is dangerous to walk over some parts, the thin crusts over the burrows being 
insufficient to support one’s weight. The northern slopes of Phillip Island 
are similarly riddled, and many birds breed in the shallow holes drilled in the 
slight soil covering the rocky islets to the north of the main island. I found a 
pair preparing their burrow on the Redstone in October, 1908. 
“ At Lord Howe Island it breeds on Goat Island in the Lagoon, Mutton 
Bird Island, and on the Admiralty Islets. Although I was too early to find any 
eggs, I surprised some birds in the act of cleaning out the old burrows, preparatory 
to laying.” 
In the same place (p. 648, 1910), Hull included Puffinus griseus Gmelin as 
an inhabitant of Norfolk Island, with which he identified Puffinus sphenurus 
* Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. -1909, Vol. XXXIV., p. 647, 1910. 
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