Evening star., 1897-01-09
MuTTON BIRD OF TREFOIL ISLAND.
The Sooty Petrol is Esteemed Del
fcacy in Australia.

From the San Francisco Chronicle.
Tastes differ in different ATTITUDES, even
among English-speaking people. Imagine
Caucasans dining on salted petrels, and
with a relish, too as though that fish-eat-
ing sea bird were luxury. or all the fowl
that haunt the barren islands on the Califor
mia coast none are considered SO worthless
as the sooty petrol. Even the seagull has his
usefulness as a scavenger on the bays along
the coast, but the petrol is truly despiscd
bird iu these waters. Seasulls eggs bring
a price in the market that makes it worth
while to gather them at a considerable eX-
pense, but no one thinks it worth while to
rob the petrels' nests on the rookeries at
the Farallone Islands
1t is different in Australia. Is it the cold
winds that blow up from the antarctic re-
gions or the hot air that sweeps down from
the equator? No matter what the cause,
the fact is that the appetites Of our Aus
tralian cousins are radically different. The
scoty petrol is there an edible fowl, with
decided market value, and number of
men aud small craft are employed each
year in catching, sailing. packing and car
rying it in great quantities from the rook-
cries on Trefoil Island and other adjoining
islands on the rorth coast of Tasmania to
Stanley and Melbourne.
petrol there. and the men and ships en-
gagged in the business are known as mut
ton birders" To Americans this Is quite a
novel industry, and the fact that such COM
mon sea birds as the petrol are packed and
salted down like so much pork is always a
matter Of wonderment to strangers who go
there. But the test of the pudding is in the
eating of it. and those who have dIned off
mutton birds instead of land mutton pro-
nounce the one every bit as good as the
other.
If you leave San Francisco in August,
sailing westward and southwark, you will
PISS many great fiocks Of birds that will
be pointed out to you sooty petrels-or
they will pass you, for they are travelling
about three times faster than you are. And
when you reach Melbourne and have be-
come acclimated enough to venture a trip
across to Tasmania, you may dine off the
young of those very birds that passed You
on the California coast, only now they will
be served - you as mutton BIRDS
These fowls leave the Farallones every
few months, and once every year they visit
Australia. Trefoil Island is their chief
roosting place in the southern hemisphere.
so far as is known. Here they scratch and
dig In the barren soil until they have bur-
rowed a hole perhaps two feet deep. Into
these holes each hen in the immense flock
deposits her one egg. The mutton birder
Inserts his arm full stretch for his game
He does not take the egg, but waits a week
or ten days after the egg has been Matched.
Then he finds the young bird almost as big
fat. On land the petrol is quite unable to
escape from the catchers. 1t cannot mount
into the air from of the land though its
wings are enormously long in proportion to
its black body, and it rises quite gracefully
from the water. On shore. however, the
strange bird must hop along at a slow pace
ard can only fly from the top of a ledge.
Certain points of Trefoil Island are Uttered
with thousands Of these nests, and it is
no difficult task to gather the yearly har-
vest Of young mutton birds. The mutton
birding season on Trefoil Island lasts from
a month to six weeks, and this includes the
catching. sailing, packing and shipping
They are packed In casks, and these are
loaded on coasting schooners that come af-
ter them from Tasmania and Melbourne
By the time the fresh crop of mutton
birds Is being eaten at Melbourne the adult
parents, with perhaps q certain percentage
Of the young ones that have escaped the
catchers. are returning to their old haunts,
occupying the old and scratching new nests
on the Farallone Islands. Here the birds
are practically unmolested, and It may thus
be said, with some basis in reason, that the
California coast 10 supplying the Australian
coasters with their edible seafowl. 1t Is
true. of course, that the petrol finds other
quiet nesting places besides the Islands on
the California coast but It II also true that
Catalina, the Santa Barbara channe'