8 PROCELLARITDÆ.
TUBINARES. PROCELL A RI1DÆ.
ffiSTRELATA HJESITATA (Kulll*).
THE CAPPED PETBEL.
Procellaria hcesitata.
(Estrelata, Bonaparte +.—Bill rather shorter than the head, stout, compressed,
straight for some distance, then ascending at the commencement of the
unguis, which is sharply decurved, with an acute tip ; nasal tubes moderately
long, elevated, conspicuous, the dorsal outline straight, the orifice subcircular.
Wings long and pointed, extending beyond the tail when folded ; the first quill
a trifle longer than the second. Tail moderately long and graduated. Tarsi
reticulated ; feet and front toes of moderate size ; hind toe small and elevated.
The Capped P etrel represented above was observed in
Marcli or April, 1850, by a boy on a heatli at Southacre,
near Swaffham in Norfolk, flapping for some time from one
* Procellaria hasitata, Kuhl, Beit. Zool. i. p H2 (1820).
f ARslrelata, Bonaparte, Gompt. Rend xlii. p. 768 (1856). Amended to
(Eslrelata, the derivation being from olarpos (oestrus), a gad-fly.
furze-bush to another ; at length it got into one of the bushes,
and was then secured by him : exhausted as it was, it had
strength enough remaining to bite violently the hand of its
captor, who thereupon killed it. The late Mr. Newcome, of
Hockwold Hall, near Brandon, fortunately happened at the
time to be hawking in the neighbourhood of Swaffham, and
his falconer, John Madden, observing the boy with the dead
bird, procured it from him, and brought it to his master, by
whom it was skinned and mounted, and in whose collection
it found a place. A detailed account of this bird, with two
illustrations, is given by Prof. Alfred Newton in £ The Zoologist’
for 1852, p. 3691.
In the Museum at Boulogne there is an example said to
have been shot near that town many years ago by its donor,
a sportsman long since deceased, and these are the only
two instances on record of the occurrence of this species on
the shores of Europe. Little is known of the distribution
or head-quarters of this Petrel. In the British Museum
there is a specimen from Hayti ; and in Paris there are
three examples obtained by L ’Herminier, in the island of
Guadeloupe.* Lafresnaye states, on his authority (Kev.
Zool. 1844, p. 168), that there are two closely-allied species
in that island, the one arriving towards the end of September,
and breeding in the cliffs ; the latter, and somewhat smaller
species, arriving at a different time of year, and breeding in
the same cliffs, but at a different elevation. The natives
distinguish them as ‘ Petrels des hauts’ and ‘Petrels des
bas.’ One or both of these may, perhaps, be the ‘ Diablotin ’
of the natives, stated nearly two centuries ago by Père Labat
to breed in holes in the mountains, especially in La Souffrière
of Guadeloupe, and in Dominica ; and it has been assumed
that Labat’s bird may be this species ; but against this it
must be said that Labat expressly states that his ‘ Diablotin ’
is black all over, and as such he figures it. Mr. F. Ober,
who recently visited the above islands, and made expeditions
to the mountains for the purpose of obtaining the ‘ Diablotin,’
* There is a fourth specimen in the Paris Museum, and one at Leiden, hut the
localities of their capture are not positively known.
VOL. IV. C