180 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Behavior. — Mr. Ogilvie-Grant (1896) makes the following ref- 

 erence to its flight : 



We first observed and recognized with pleasure tliese beautiful petrels as 

 we neared tbe Salvages, when numbers were seen flitting along close to the 

 surface of the sea, with their long legs dangling beneath them and just touch- 

 ing the water. Now they would be lost sight of in the hollows between the 

 huge Atlantic rollers, now reappear, closely following the undulating waters 

 with their graceful easy flight. 



The same naturalist says : 



We never heard the call of this bird ; those flying over the sea during the day- 

 time were ahAays perfectly silent so far as we heard, though they constantly 

 passed close to our tug, and there was no lack of them. When caught on 

 their eggs they uttered a short, grunting note, nmch like that given vent to 

 by the domestic pigeon under similar circumstances. 



Lieut, Boyd Alexander (1898), however, says that on its breeding 

 grounds, in the Cape Verde Islands, it uttered " grating notes like 

 those of a pair of rusty springs set in motion." 



The white-faced petrel seems to have many enemies to check its 

 increase in its thickly populated colonies. Lieut. Alexander (1898) 

 noted that, in unearthing these petrels, several managed to escape. 

 " They ran along the ground in a dazed condition, and before we 

 could move tliem they were pounced upon and carried off by kites." 

 Mr. Ogilvie-Grant (1896) " found quite a number of dead birds and 

 sucked eggs, evidently the work of the mice already mentioned, as 

 their droppings were to be seen all about the burrows, and the marks 

 of their teeth upon the empty shells were unmistakable. The birds, 

 some of which were quite freshly killed and almost untouched, were 

 invariably done to death by being bitten at the nape of the neck, 

 and in some cases part of the brain had been eaten. It seemed cu- 

 rious that these comparatively small mice should be able to kill a 

 bird several times larger than themselves, and provided with a fairly 

 strong, hooked bill; but no doubt the petrels get caught in the end 

 of their burrow, and, being terrified, do not even try to defend them- 

 selves." Campbell and Mattingley (1906) write: 



Two enemies of the white-faced storm-petrel are found on the island — the 

 harrier, and, worse still, the common rat, introduced by the guano-getters. If 

 these rodents are not exterminated, it is only a matter of time when they will 

 destroy the occupants of the rookery, since several freshly killed remnants of 

 these fragile birds were found about. 



Since the above was written the bird which breeds on the islands 

 in the eastern Atlantic Ocean has been separated as a distinct sub- 

 species, Pelagodroma marina hypoleuca (Moquin-Tandon). This 

 is, of course, the subspecies which belongs on the American list. It 

 seems better, hoAvever, to leave the life history as I have written it, 



