104 
FORKED -TAILED PETREL. 
darkness either on the water, or on low rocks or islands. It also less fre- 
quently alights on the water, or pats it with its feet, probably on account of 
the shortness of its legs, although it frequently allows them to hang down. 
In this it resembles the Thalassidroma pelagica, and Wilson’s Petrel has a 
similar habit during calm weather. I have seen all the three species immerse 
their head into the water, to seize their food, and sometimes keep it longer 
under than I had expected. 
About the first of June, the species separate, collect in numbers, and 
return to their breeding places. I state so from the report of persons on 
whose testimony I can rely, and who have assured me that, like the Guille- 
mots, they revisit their haunts each spring for years in succession. They 
now fly in front of the high rocks, in the manner of our Purple Martin 
when it first arrives at its well known box, passing and repassing a thousand 
times in the day, enter their dark and narrow mansions, or stand in the 
passage, and emit their cries, as the bird just mentioned is wont to do on 
similar occasions. Now they alight on some broad shelf, and walk as if 
about to fall down, but with considerable ease, and at times with rapidity. 
Now and then the mated birds approach each other, and, I believe, disgorge 
some food into each other’s mouths, although I am not absolutely certain 
that they do so, having only observed them at such times by means of a 
glass. They collect grasses and pebbles, of which they form a flat nest, on 
which a single white egg is deposited, which measures an inch and a quartei 
in length, by seven-eighths in breadth, is neai'ly equally rounded at both 
ends, and looks very large for the size of the bird. When boiled, it has a 
musky smell, but is palatable. When you pass close to the rocks in which 
they are, you easily hear their shrill querulous notes ; but the report of a gun 
silences them at once, and induces those on the ledges to betake themselves 
to th§ir holes. 
The Porked-tailed Petrel, like the other species, feeds chiefly on floating 
mollusca, small fishes, Crustacea, which they pick up among the floating sea- 
weeds, and greasy substances, which they occasionally find around fishing- 
boats or ships out at sea. When seized in the hand, it ejects an oily fluid 
through the tubular nostrils, and sometimes disgorges a quantity of food. I 
could not prevail on any of those which I had caught to take food. 
TStialassidroma Leachii, Bonap. Syn., p. 367. 
Fork-tailed Stormy Petrel, Thalassidroma Leachii , Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 326. 
Forked-tailed Petrel, Thalassidroma Leachii , Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iii. p. 434. 
Male, 8, 181. 
Common on the Banks of Newfoundland, and at times off the coast of 
