BREWSTER : BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. 19 



rather conspicuous blackish spots or bars on the tips of the feathers of the sides 

 of the breast and body. 



According to Mr. Ridgway, Mr. Xautus took the present species at Cape St. 

 Lucas in 1859, but it was not separated from B. hypoleucus until 1867. The 

 type specimen of craveri is said ^ to have come from somewhere near the Isia 

 Raza in the Gulf of California, where Dr. Streets found the species breeding in 

 1875. It appears to be mainly confined to the Gulf, but, according to Count 

 Salvadori, has also occurred off the Pacific coast of Lower California, at the 

 island of Xatividad. 



On March 1, 1887, while on his way to Carmen Island, Mr. Frazar found 

 Craveri's Murrelets in considerable numbers near the island of San Jose, and on 

 March 18 they were again met with otf the northern end of Espiritu Santo 

 Island. Three or four were usually seen together, each group consisting of a 

 pair of old birds accompanied by a single young or of two old females and two 

 vouii". Although none of the old females seemed to have more than one 

 young each, all of those shot and examined showed two bare incubating spaces 

 on the belly. Judging by the size of the young, the eggs from which they had 

 been hatched must have been laid early in January and at some spot not far 

 from where the birds were found, perhaps, as Mr. Frazar suggests in his notes, 

 on a certain " small, round, high rock about an acre in extent opposite the 

 island of San Jose ami near the shore of the Peninsula." 



The early date of breeding established by the capture of these young is a 

 matter of surprise, for Dr. Streets obtained an adult female and her set of two 

 eggs on Isla Raza (in the Gulf of California) in April, 1875. The eggs were 

 "taken from a crevice of a rock at arm's length." They "resemble those of 

 the tern, though rather elliptical-ovoid in shape. They differ from each other 

 decidedly in the ground-color as well as in the markings. The darkest one is 

 brownish-drab, with nearly half of the surface (on the larger end) heavily and 

 contluently l)lotched with reddish-brown and dark brown, with a few neutral- 

 tint shell-markings interspersed; the rest of the egg is sparsely .sprinkled with 

 smaller and more distinct markings of the same color. The ground of the other 

 egg is clay-colored, or very pale stone-gray, with markings of the same color as 

 before, but less heavy, more distinct, and smaller. There is the same aggrega- 

 tion of spots about the larger end, but not so fully carried out, and the rest of 

 the surface is more thickly and uniformly flecked than the same portion is on 

 ihe other egg. The darker egg measured 2.05 by 1.40; the other 1.95 by 

 1.35. The eggs of the species, as far as we are aware, have not before been 

 described." 2 



^ Salvaflori, Lor. cit. 



2 Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., no. 7, 1877, 32. 



