The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954) Saturday 25 May 1946 Supplement: The Mercury Magazine p 6 Article
Peregrine's
Nature Notes
REFERRING to a recent news item in "The Mercury" announcing that a white mutton bird had been received at the Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston. Mr Leonard Tapp (Hobart) says he agrees that an albino bird of this species is extremely rare. He mentions having taken one in 1929.
"In that year." he writes, "while employed by H. J. Holloway and Sons on their mutton bird rookery, at the northern end of Babel Island, which lies to the north-east of Flinders, Island I happened to take one of these White Birds it was fully feathered: its body was pure white and it had pink eyes.
"It had already taken in 'ballast.* This means that a few days before young mutton birds leave the island they come out of their burrows and eat sand and pebbles, which makes them much thinner, and they are better able to fly. . . . This albino, being rare and handsome, was allowed its freedom."
The loss of pigment in the plumage of animals induces this character which we call albinism. It is likely to occur in any kind of bird or furred animal.
Last year an albino plover was recorded at Richmond, and before that an albino native hen was received at the ~ Queen Victoria Museum."
The suggestion that young mutton birds take in sand and gravel as ballast before they fly for the first time was investigated recently by a Victorian naturalist, who declares that this is not the object at all, but that the substances are swallowed to aid digestion.
Specimen of a hawk received from Port Arthur last week proved to be a hen sparrow hawk. There was nothing to indicate how the bird was taken.