20 
Mr. R. Hall on the 
collecting insects. Having sat down to finish a piece of 
buttered rye-bread, I observed the bird alight on a jutting 
mass of loose stones, and this led me to remove the stones 
from the entrance to the nest and to discover a delicate egg. 
At about 8 p.m. the croaking begins, for now the “ night- 
shift 33 has come in from the sea to go on duty. Many 
congratulations seem to be exchanged. Go straight to a 
wild-looking piece of the coast if you want nests. Look 
under large or small slabs of stone or within the crevices 
in the cliff-sides. Most of the nests are saucer-like, and 
neatly put together with loose twigs. Your shovel will act 
as a lever to lift the slabs and expose them, when the sitting 
bird will move away to the farthest corner to escape the light, 
never offering to bite, although the act would be harmless. 
At 7 am. I have found the male bird sitting on the egg, 
indicating, in this case, that it will sit out the day. A male 
also flew on board on one occasion during the night, which 
probably meant that it had a mate sitting on the nest. Thus 
the male possibly sits either day or night. At 8 p.m. I 
have taken both male and female from a nest which was in 
an earthen bank and had an entrance and an exit. 
The nests of this species were built principally of Azorella- 
stalks. They ,were flat, in a shallow indentation beneath a 
stone, and had no definite tunnel running to them. The 
bird would sometimes scratch an entrance. A typical nest 
measured 7x5 inches, and the depth of the bowl was 5 inches. 
On handling a bird, it will (like other Petrels) eject a fatty 
globule, for a distance of 2 feet. I used to track the sitting 
birds between 8 and 10 p.m. by their strong but mellow note. 
One evening’s search produced seven nests containing young 
and eggs. The eggs differ very slightly in size: six mea¬ 
sured 1*3 in. x 0*9 in. On February 3rd I found three eggs 
(fresh and hard-set) ; on 7th, 8th, and 9th, four fresh eggs, 
seven young nestlings, and two hard-set eggs; on the 14th 
one hard-set egg. The egg has an almost tiue oval form, 
slightly wider towards one end, around which was a circle of 
pale pink spots. The nestling was covered with a uniform 
greyish-black down. Bill black; legs bluish, tinged with 
