4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 124 



shorebirds, gulls) of most frequent occurrence in the Leewards, cer- 

 tainly accounts in large part for the increment of new records. Near 

 the overrun area of the main airstrip is a series of small ponds that 

 probably attract wandering ducks and gulls. These ponds almost 

 always have muddy margins that are particularly attractive to shore- 

 birds. Adjacent to these ponds is a several-hundred-yard-long strip 

 of low ground, often marshy during rainy periods, that, at times, has 

 ducks and large numbers of shorebirds foraging on and around it. 

 The ponds and the area nearby, from which most new records for 

 Midway have been taken, are referred to as the "overrun ponds" and 

 "overrun area" in the species accounts. 



The new and unusual records obtained by the POBSP fall into two 

 categories. One group of records is of species that regularly occur in 

 the Hawaiian chain but which represent new records for individual 

 islands. These records of migrants and winter residents or breeding 

 birds scarcely can be considered unusual, but it is worthwhile to 

 document their occurrence where heretofore unrecorded. Some of 

 these constitute not only new distributional records but also breeding 

 locality records: Christmas shearwater (Puffinus nativitatus) , Bulwer's 

 petrel (Bulweria bulwerii), sooty storm petrel (Oceanodroma tristrami), 

 red-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda), brown booby (Sula 

 leucogaster) , gray-backed tern (Sterna lunata), brown noddy (Anous 

 stolidus), and black noddy (Anous tenuirostris) . 



The other group of records is of species of uncommon or seldom 

 documented occurrence in the Hawaiian Leeward Islands. These 

 records consist of petrels, ducks, shorebirds, gulls, and a heterogenous 

 group of accidentals, composed mainly of vagrant passeriforms but 

 including wandering birds of prey, an alcid, and a coot. A large 

 number of these forms are Palearctic in origin. 



Some of the procellariiforms were buds that normally occur at sea 

 in the vicinity of the Leewards and that washed up on the beach — 

 northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), sooty shearwater (Puffinus 

 griseus), and Leach's petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa). Others had 

 straggled far from their known range — little shearwater (Puffinus 

 assimilis), Kermadec petrel (Pterodroma neglecta), and Murphy's petrel 

 (Pterodroma ultima) . 



Of the migrant ducks, some records are of species that occur fre- 

 quently in the main Hawaiian Islands in winter — American widgeon 

 (Mareca americana) and shoveler (Spatula clypeata [see Medeiros, 

 1958]). These birds may have come from North America although 

 the shovelers could have wandered eastward from the Old World. 

 Other records involve species only known to breed in the Old World — 

 garganey teal (Anas querquedula) , European widgeon (Anas penelope), 

 and tufted duck (Aythya juligula) , whereas the common teal (Anas 



