BLUE PETREL. 
flying a mile or so. The noise of their calling was incessant during the night, 
coming as often from the burrows as from the air, but became much less 
frequent after the middle of November, from which I infer that the call is 
connected with the season of pairing. 
“ They had probably begun to pair in September, and the first egg was 
found on October 23rd, although doubtless they begin to lay earher. A young 
bird covered with slate-coloured down, was found on November 12th, and 
frequently thereafter. 
“ In the neighbourhood of their burrows, they are exclusively nocturnal 
in their habits, being, perhaps, the very latest to appear after night-fall. They 
are, however, often seen at sea during the day, many hundreds of miles from 
land.” 
The Rev. A. E. Eaton,* also writing from Kerguelen, says : “ The 
resemblance between this Petrel and Prion desolatus extends even to their coo. 
Their calls underground, are so much alike, that on hearing one it is difficult 
to say to which of the two species the bird cooing should be referred, without 
digging it up for inspection ; and their tone is very similar in sound to the cooing 
of some foreign doves. But their calls during flight are very different from 
one another. 
“It is in the habit of burrowing into Azorella growing upon dry soft loam, 
where no obstacles impede its progress ; its eggs are, therefore, obtainable 
without much trouble as early as the 23rd of October. A nestling almost fully 
fledged was killed on the 9th of February. 
“ Some of the old birds while they were dying cast up the contents of their 
crop, which were green, like ulvaP 
Mr. W. Eagle Clarkef has recorded the extended southern range of this 
bird to 69° 33' S. ; he also says : “ It would seem that this species is local in 
its far southern range, and is a specially characteristic bird of the Weddell 
Sea. It was not seen at the South Orkneys during the summer, nor was it 
encountered at sea in the vicinity of that Archipelago. 
“ The bill, in freshly killed examples, was cobalt-blue, except the nares 
and culmen, which were black. The feet were cobalt-blue, the webs pale flesh- 
coloured, the claws black.” 
The male bird figured and described was collected on Macquarie Island 
in September, 1899. ' 
I have a specimen as noted previously, which I received under the name of 
P. coolci, which was picked up dead in Victoria. Otherwise I can trace no 
definite records for Australian waters. 
* Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., Vol. 168, p. 142, 1879. 
^ Ibis 1907, p. 340. 
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