Mr. R. Elwes on the Short-tailed Petrel. 
397 
last he found it necessary to resort to stratagem, and to en¬ 
deavour to “ stalk ” the bird. This a newly made ditch and 
bank, one extremity of which approached within a few yards of 
the water’s edge, enabled him to do successfully. On raising 
his head above the bank, just before he tired, he perceived the 
Stilt within twenty yards of him, knee-deep in the water, in the 
midst of a cloud of gnats and midges, at which he was snapping 
right and left, much after the manner (to use Pearson’s own 
simile) of a dog when teased by the flies in hot weather. 
The bird, fortunately but little injured by the shot, was 
brought to me on the following morning, and on subsequent 
dissection proved to be a female. The ovarium contained several 
eggs, the largest of which was about the size of a pea. The 
stomach was crammed with beetles and gnats in a half-digested 
state, the elytra of the former showing that different species had 
been captured. After the first pleasurable sensations on pos¬ 
sessing and examining in the flesh a perfect specimen of so rare 
a visitor had passed away, I could not help being struck with the 
remarkable tenuity of the tips of the mandibles, as well as by 
the more obvious peculiarity from which the bird has derived its 
name (the extraordinary length of its legs); but after listening 
to the simple story of George Pearson and his son, I perceived 
that the mystery was solved, and that here was a new instance 
of the wonderful adaptation of means to an end, of structure 
to habits, such interesting examples of which are continually 
presenting themselves to the observant naturalist. 
XL.— Note on the Breeding and Mode of Capture of the Short¬ 
tailed Petrel, or Mutton Bird (Puffinus obscurus), in the islands 
in Bass’s Straits . From the Journal of Robert Elwes. 
The little settlement on Vansittart’s or Gun-carriage Island, 
one of the Flinders’s Islands group in Bass’s Straits, lies in a 
cove,, on one side sandy, but on the other closed in by huge 
granite rocks, behind which the sealers have built their houses, 
and which serve also to shelter their boats from the sea. Tucker’s 
(the chief settler’s) house was comfortable enough. His wife 
