The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 09 (of 10)Evans, A. H. (Arthur Humble)
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 09 (of 10)
Evans, A. H. (Arthur Humble)
Animals; Birds
the morsel obtained, or to float upon the waves while enjoying it;
Shearwaters commonly dash down with considerable impetus, and disappear
after their prey for the moment; while the Diving Petrels procure their
nourishment at a much greater depth. When handled, and perhaps especially
when taken from a nesting-hole, the birds bite severely, and eject a
quantity of amber-coloured or greenish oil from the beak, followed as a
rule by semi-digested food, the fluid possessing a strong smell of musk,
which is also perceptible in the feathers and the eggs. The nest of the
Albatros is usually a truncated cone or cylinder of mud, grass, leaves, and
moss, with a slight {63}depression on the top, colonies being formed on
cliffs, rocky slopes, or bare hill-tops above the limit of trees; the Giant
Petrel makes a similar structure at no great elevation; Shearwaters and
their nearest allies collect a mass of grass and rubbish in a burrow
scraped in a bank, among boulders, or in holes and crevices of rocks,
accommodating themselves to little stone huts, provided by the fishermen,
in the Canary and Salvage Islands.[65] Fulmars scrape a cup-shaped hollow
on ledges of precipices, adding little or no lining, while most of the
remaining forms utilise small burrows, or crannies among the scattered
stones which collect upon the shores or at the base of cliffs. A single
lack-lustre white egg is deposited, frequently marked with a ring of rusty
spots towards the larger end, especially in the case of the lesser species.
Adult and young Shearwaters are eaten by the natives of the Canaries, the
islands of Scotland, Ireland, and elsewhere, _Puffinus brevicauda_ being
the "Mutton-bird" of Australia, and _P. anglorum_ being termed "Fachach" in
the Hebrides and North Ireland. In the case of _Pelagodroma_, we have
positive evidence that both sexes incubate;[66] and before the eggs are
laid the parents are not uncommonly found together in the hole when such a
site is chosen. Incubation lasts from twenty-five to sixty days.
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