16 
Mr. R. Hall on the 
about 2 inches deep, as all was simply matted with the 
natural short grass, and appeared as if merely placed upon 
it. Many nests are raised 1^ feet. Some have well-trimmed 
sides of earth and are conical, but they are in the minority. 
Nests of last year still remained among those of the present, 
and some of those tenanted were simply additions to those 
of the past season. The nests may be within two yards of 
each other to the number of three or four, but generally 
they are many paces apart, and continue in a line along the 
higher grounds of the beach. 
On the 15th of February I observed some 30 nests, all 
with half-incubated eggs. The first fresh eggs were noted 
on New Year’s day in a rookery of 25 nests, but several 
nests were still without eggs on the 3rd of January. Two 
of the sitting birds photographed were not mature. In 
one case the back was barred, and in the other the wing- 
coverts were far from being white. I observed sitting birds 
in three stages of plumage, in what I would be inclined to 
think the second, third, and fourth years of age. The skin 
prepared by us does not quite agree with Mr. Salvin’s 
description in his key (Cat. B. xxv. p. 440), for the scapulars 
are not “ faintly banded/’ while the only flush of pink on 
the bird was over the left eye, and even this was scarcely 
visible. The above-mentioned skin I presented to the Hon. 
Walter Rothschild for his museum. 
On the 15th of January an egg was taken from a nest, 
and eight days later I saw the bird still sitting on its nest. 
It seemed a long business. When eggs are taken from 
the nests, the birds quietly get on again and continue to 
sit. One egg weighed 1 lb., and measured 5*25 inches by 
3*20 inches, and this was the largest found. A smaller egg 
was broken in the nest by one of the ship’s crew, and forty- 
eight hours later I observed that the bird was still sitting 
with its feathers damped and soiled. The date was written 
on this egg, and it may remain a long while in the nest. 
We found the male bird taking part in the incubation. 
On the bird killed and preserved on February 14th several 
lice remained alive in the plumage, until they were bottled 
on March 23rd. 
