The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-02-06
MUTTON BIRD.
The Sooty Petrol Is Esteemed a Delicacy
in Australia

IN Australia
Tastes differ in different ATTITUDES
even among English-speaking people
Imagine Caucasians dining on sailed
Cetrels and with 4 relish, TOO, as though
that ~fisheating sea bird were a luxury,
Of all the fowl that haunt the barren
islands on the California coast none is
considered quite so worthless as the
sooty petrol. Even the seagull has his
usefulness as q scayenger on the bays
along the coast but the petrol is truly a
despised bird in these waters. Sea-
gull's eggs bring a price in the market
that makes it worth while to gather
them at a considerable expense, but no
one thinks it worth while to rob the
petrels' nests on the rookeries at the
Farallon islands.
1t is different in Australia. Is it the
cold winds that blow up from the ant
arctic regions or the hot air that sweeps
down from the equator? No matter
what the cause, the fact is that the appe-
tites of u Australian cousins are ra6i-
cally different. The sooty petrol is
there an edible fowl with a decided
market value, and a number of men and
small craft are employed each year in
catching, sailing, packing and carrying
it in great quantities from the rookeries
IN Trefoil island and other adjoining
islands on the north coast of Tasmania
to Stanley and Melbourne.
Mutton birds is the general name
given the petrol there and the men and
ships engaged in the business are
known as mutton birderS." To Ameri-
can this is quite a novel industry and
the fact that such common sea birds as
the petrol are packed and sailed 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 eat
ing of it and those who have dined Off
mutton birds instead of land mutton
pronounce the one every bit as good as
the other.
If you leave San Francisco in August
sailing westward and southwark you
will pass many great flocks of birds
that will be pointed out to you as 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 become acclimated
enough to venture n trip across to Tas-
mania you may dine off the young of
those very birds that passed you on the
California coast, only now they will be
served to 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 a is known. Here
they scratch and dig in the barren soil
until they have burrowed a hole per-
haps 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 4 week
or ten days after the egg has been
Matched. Then he finds the young bird
almost as big as its parent, but much
more tender and fat. On land the
petrol is quite unable to escape from
the catchers. 1t cannot mount into the
air from off the land, though its wings
are enormously long in proportion to
its black body and it rises quite grace
fully from the water. On shore, how
ever, the strange bird must hop along
at a slow pace and can only fly from the
top of a ledge. Certain points Of Trefoil
island are Uttered with thousands of
these nests ard it is no difficult task
to gather the yearly harvest of young
mutton birds. The mutton-birding
season on Trefoil lasts from 4
month TO six weeks and this Includes
the catching, sailing, packing and ship
ping. They are packed in casks and
these are loaded on c~oasting schooners
that come after them from Tasmania
and Melbourne.-San Francisco Chron.
icle.