144 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



crowing qualitj^ ; such a call as might be uttered by elves or brownies." 

 The weird notes heard on the breeding grounds at night have sug- 

 gested to some observers the phrases, " Got any terbacker," " Jonny 

 get your hair cut " or " Go to Gehenna," but these seem to be very 

 crude reproductions. 



The midnight performance has been much more pleasingly de- 

 scribed by Mr. Frank A. Brown (1911) as follows: 



The flight of Leach petrels from the sea had heguii, and, like erratic flying 

 bats, they brushed my tent, my coat, flying almost full into my face, until the 

 air seemed fairly alive with them, uttering their peculiar staccato, cooing 

 sounds. To the monotonous chanting of these sounds, which came from the birds 

 in swift, circling flight, in an hour I had dropped asleep, waking again at about 

 midnight, to find the flight notes entirely succeeded by a different song, ap- 

 parently proceeding from the ground, and some birds evidently but just 

 separated from me by the side of my tent. Crawling on hands and knees with 

 utmost care, I was unable to see the birds in the act of singing, although I 

 could just make them out as they rose from the ground. The song, while of a 

 similar tone, was absolutely different from the early evening, softer, somewhat 

 liquid, and was nearly continuous. I judge it was uttered at the mouth of the 

 nesting burrow. The cool night air of the ocean soon drove me again to my 

 blankets, where I slept till the reddening drawn brought the first note of a 

 stirring tern. But the petrels were gone, and the islands given over again to the 

 legions of the day. 



The gentle petrels have many enemies that attack them on their 

 breeding grounds, where they are easily dug out of their burrows in 

 the soft ground and are too stupid to escape. Dogs and cats, intro- 

 duced as domestic pets, are the chief offenders. Between my two 

 visits to Spoon Island fishermen camping on the island with a dog 

 seriously reduced the numbers of the petrels nesting there. On Seal 

 Island a Newfoundland dog, owned by the lighthouse keeper, spent 

 much of his time hunting for and digging out petrel buri-ows. 

 Apparently he did this purel}^ for the sport of it, for we found the 

 bodies of the petrels lying where he had killed them; perhaps the 

 strong- smelling oily fluid which the birds ejected prevented his eat- 

 ing them, but did not discourage his digging out and killing them. 

 After a few years of this persistent hunting I learned that this large 

 and populous colony had been practically exterminated. Similar 

 destruction was going on at Machias Seal Island until, through the 

 efforts of the Audubon Societies, the dog was removed. On my recent 

 visit to Bird Rock, in 1915, I found that the petrels had been exter- 

 minated by a cat. Mr. B. S. Bowdish (1909) calls attention to "the 

 terrible slaughter of petrels by minks upon Western Egg Rock," 

 on the coast of Maine. Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1897) found that the 

 petrels of St. Lazaria Island had some formidable enemy, as he 

 found " their remains, together with egg shells, scattered on many 

 parts of the island." He suspected that " the hundreds of Northwest 

 crows which breed on the island were accountable to some extent." 



