BROWN-HEADED PETREL. 
powdered with slate-grey ; sides of the face, ear-coverts, cheeks, chin and throat greyish- 
brown, each feather margined with white ; remainder of the under-surface of the body 
smoky-brown with the concealed basal two-thirds white ; under tail-coverts smoky-grey; 
under wing-coverts and axillaries brownish-black. Bill black, eyes dark brown, feet 
black. Total length 445 mm. : culmen 33, wing 296, tail 135, tarsus 40. Collected on the 
Lower Road, Lord Howe Island, on the 21st of April, 1914. 
Immature. Like the adult, but the secondary wing-coverts lighter, median coverts darker, 
lesser wing-coverts lighter. The dark tips to the feathers of the under-surface are some¬ 
what paler. 
Nestling. Covered with dark ashy-grey down, concolour. 
Nest. A large accumulation of grass placed at the end of a burrow; some burrows are six feet 
in length, in which the egg is almost concealed. 
Egg. Clutch one ; dull white, 63 mm. by 44. 
Breeding-season. May and June to August. 
Eggs. The “ Mountain Petrel ” was found breeding on Mt. Gower on Lord Howe Island on the 
30th of May, 1914, and 15 eggs were taken. The eggs are ovate to rounded ovate, very 
little pointed, much less elongated and thicker than the eggs of the Puffini. They are pure 
white, smooth, but glossless and irregularly pitted. Held against the light they have a 
faint creamy tinge. They measure : 69‘5 X 49'5, 68 X 50, 68'5 X 50'5, 66 X 47’8, 
73 X 49-5, 66 X 49-5, 68‘5 X 48'5, 64'5 X 49, 64 X 48, 62’5 X 48‘5, 63 X 48'5, 63 X 50, 
655 X 50, 67‘5 X 49, and 66 X 50 mm. (These eggs were found in burrows, while 
Pterodroma neglecta lays its eggs in the open. This is w ell known, and Roy Bell’s labels 
confirm it.) 
In my Birds of Australia, as given above, pp. 148-9, I suggested that the 
persistent persecution by the early colonists forced this bird to abandon Norfolk 
Island, its original home, and take refuge on Lord Howe Island. Hunter 
says: “ They were at the end of May as plentiful as if none had been caught, 
although for two months before there had not been less taken than from two 
to three thousand birds every night.” After Hunter was wrecked in the 
“Sirius” on Norfolk Island, in March, 1790, he and his men lived on these birds 
for some time. There were over 500 people to feed. 
I fortunately possess a painting of this bud done by George Raper in 
1790, from a bird taken at Mount Pitt, Norfolk Island, the Bird of Provi¬ 
dence of Hunter, Procellaria providentia—Pterodroma providentia, of which 
name the plate is the type. 
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