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.