44 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 61, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



they nested "on level ground, some in clumps of grass" and that 

 as soon as the young were able to fly they left their nesting 

 grounds. 



It is interesting to note that, about 1879, Turner was on 

 Amchitka Island with some Attu natives, when they picked up 

 a dead shearwater. The natives told him that the birds "breed 

 plentifully in the Semichi Islands." Though the breeding range 

 of shearwaters is now well established, perhaps we should not 

 entirely ignore native information of this kind. 



Puffinus griseus: Sooty Shearwater 



According to the fourth edition of the Check List of North 

 American Birds, of the American Ornithologists' Union, the 

 sooty shearwater occurs in the Aleutian and Kurile Islands. On 

 all of our expeditions, we scrutinized flocks of shearwaters in an 

 attempt to identify this species among the predominent slender- 

 billed shearwaters. Although we thought that we could see 

 differences in some instances, positive identification was doubtful. 

 But, in the series of specimens of shearwaters collected in the 

 Aleutian district, a single specimen proved to be P. griseus. 



Nichols (1927), speaking of his voyage between Seattle and 

 the Aleutian Islands, says : 



Of the sooty shearwater I have no satisfactory identification, but am of the 

 impression that it replaced the generally common slender bill farthest off 

 shore at a point midway between the islands and the coast, and to some 

 extent at least on the east side of the Gulf of Alaska. 



Pterodroma inexpectafa: Scaled Petrel 



Attu : Le-vi-dre-che 



This petrel has a wide range, but we have little informa- 

 tion on it in the southern Alaskan waters. There is a record for 

 Kodiak Island, a specimen collected by Fisher, June 11, 1882, that 

 served as the type of Ridgway's Aestrelata fisheri. Wetmore 

 collected a specimen at the Alaska Peninsula, August 6, 1911, 

 and while crossing from Cape Muzon to Unimak Pass he ob- 

 served a number of birds that appeared to be of this form. On 

 the same expedition, A. C. Bent also observed the bird in the 

 North Pacific, while sailing to the Aleutian Islands, and Rollo 

 H. Beck, who was a member of the expedition, took a specimen 

 at Kiska Island on June 17. 



Nichols (1927), speaking of seeing this petrel on his trip 

 from Seattle to Nome, Alaska, says : 



Seen in the Pacific on 1 day only, August 5, when midway between the 

 islands and the west coast, noon position 53° 36' N., 145° 37' W. They were 



