94 The Ottawa Naturalist [September 



Some few guillemots and puffins also lay their eggs among 

 the stones and rocks above high water on the beach. The two 

 eggs in the case of the guillemots are well hidden at the bottom 

 of some passage between the rounded boulders. In scrambling 

 over these rocky portions, we startle the sitting birds from their 

 eggs. They flutter forth and perch upon a nearby boulder, or 

 flop into the waves, watching with outstretched necks and 

 anxious gaze the movements of the intruder. 



The peat-like turf of the elevated parts of the island was 

 completely honeycombed with the burrows of the Leach's 

 petrels the air about being pervaded with the strong musky 

 odor of the birds. The petrels themselves, however, are not to 

 be seen at all during the day, unless you thrust your arm full 

 length into one of the burrows and bring forth the hiding bird, 

 probably the sitting female, whose mate is far out to sea search- 

 ing its food. But it is at night the petrels make merry. With 

 darkness the foragers return and the sitting ones sally forth. 

 Now the air becomes resonant with their soft twitterings and 

 duckings, while shadowy forms flit about in every direction. 

 The nest burrow is usually about two feet in length, just large 

 enough to admit the birds and most often following the side of 

 some tree root, or underground boulder. But one egg is laid, 

 that upon the bare turf at the tunnel's end. 



The half-wild cats with which the island is infested, play 

 sad havoc with the poor petrels. Lying in wait at the entrance 

 to the burrows at nightfall they seize upon their unhappy 

 victims as they venture forth. Scattered feathers, wings and 

 tails, everywhere through the v/oods, attest the murderous 

 work of the cats. 



Some fifteen or twenty eider ducks were spending the 

 summer about the shore, and suspecting some were breeding, 

 search was made among the brush for the nests. With 

 the aid of an aged Newfoundland retriever, who picked up the 

 trail of a duck, and led us into a tangle of bushes and weeds, 

 we discovered one nest, thickly lined with down and containing 

 six large, olive green eggs. Formerly these ducks nested in 

 great abundance on Seal Island, but of late years only an oc- 

 casional pair or so. 



Of the shore birds, only three species were noted at that 

 season. These were the spotted sandpiper, piping plover and 

 semi-palmated plover ; all of which Mr. Crowell has found nest- 

 ing. A few terns, both the common and arctic, were nesting 

 about the big sand flat, mere remnants of the swarms that used 

 to nest there. 



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