umbers of
oceanic birds daily met with, the observation of whose habits and
succession of occurrence served to fill up many a leisure hour. It being
the winter of the southern hemisphere, the members of the petrel family,
at other times so abundant in the South Pacific, were by no means so
numerous as I had expected to find them, and in the higher southern
latitudes which we attained before rounding Cape Horn, albatrosses had
altogether disappeared, although they had been abundant as far to the
southward as 41 degrees South. The most widely dispersed were Daption
capensis--the pintado or Cape-pigeon of voyagers--Procellaria hasitata,
P. coerulea, P. lessonii, and P. gigantea, of which the first and second
were the most numerous and readily took a bait towing astern. It is
probable that all these species make the circuit of the globe, as they
are equally distributed over the South Indian Ocean. Some interesting
additions were made to the collection of Procellariadae (commenced near
the equator with Thalassidroma leachii) and before leaving the Falklands
I had captured and prepared specimens of twenty-two species of this
highly interesting family, many members of which until the publication of
Mr. Gould's memoir* were either unknown or involved in obscurity and
confusion. Among these is one which merits special notice here, a small
blue petrel, closely resembling P. coerulea, from which it may readily be
distinguished by wanting the white tips to the central tailfeathers. It
turns out to be the P. desolata, known only by a drawing in the British
Museum made more than half a century ago, from which this species was
characterised. When in latitude 50 degrees 46 minutes South and longitude
97 degrees 47 minutes West I saw P. antarctica for the first time; one or
two individuals were in daily attendance while rounding Cape Horn and
followed the ship until we sighted the Falkland Islands. I had long been
looking out for P. glacialoides, which in due time made its appearance--a
beautiful light grey petrel, larger than a pigeon; it continued with us
between the latitudes of 40 and 58 degrees South and occasionally pecked
at a baited hook towing astern.

(*Footnote. Magazine and Annals of Natural History for 1844 page 360.)

One may naturally wonder what these petrels can procure for food in the
ocean to the southward of 35 degrees south latitude, where they are
perhaps more numerous than elsewhere, and where the voyager never se