less except in the places actually covered by the tents. These birds are
about the size of a pigeon, and when skinned and smoked we thought them
passable food. Any quantity could be procured by sending people on shore
in the evening. The sole process was to thrust in the arm up to the
shoulder and seize them briskly; but there was some danger of grasping a
snake at the bottom of the burrow instead of a petrel."

The remark that the egg of the sooty petrel is of enormous size is of
course only true relatively to the size of the bird. The egg is about as
large as a duck's egg, but longer and tapering more sharply at one end.
For the rest the description is an excellent one. The wings of the bird
are of great length and strength, giving to it wonderful speed and power
of flight. The colour is coal-black. Flinders saw more of the
sooty-petrel on his subsequent voyage round Tasmania; and it will be
convenient to quote here the passage in which he refers to the prodigious
numbers in which the birds were seen. It may be added that, despite a
century of slaughter by mankind, and after the taking of millions of
eggs--which are good food--the numbers of the mutton-birds are still
incalculably great.* (* The author may refer to a paper of his own, "The
Mutton Birds of Bass Strait," in the Field, April 18, 1903, for a study
of the sooty petrel during the laying season on Phillip Island. An
excellent account of the habits of the bird is given in Campbell's Nests
and Eggs of Australian Birds.) Writing of what he saw off the extreme
north-west of Tasmania in December, 1798, Flinders said:--

"A large flock of gannets was observed at daylight to issue out of the
great bight to the southward; and they were followed by such a number of
sooty petrels as we had never seen equalled. There was a stream of from
fifty to eighty yards in depth and of three hundred yards, or more, in
breadth; the birds were not scattered, but flying as compactly as a free