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 movement of their wings seemed to allow; and during a full hour and a half this stream of petrels continued to pass without interruption at a rate little inferior to the swiftness of a pigeon.