^"''igiV"'] Hall, The Jungle and the Snows. II7 



making tlie call of a Cockatoo lost at sea. South of the line the 

 Black-billed Albatross [Diomedea carteri) was among the tube- 

 nosed birds, our followers. But it was a single example only 

 among the thirty of Wandering and Black-browed species. In 

 the Indian Ocean I saw the three Skua Gulls that reach Australian 

 shores. In February I saw, off the Laccadive Islands, what I 

 took to be Siercorarius crepidatiis, the Arctic Skua. It was the 

 uniform brown variety, appearing too small for 5. pomatorhinus. 

 In either case it was wintering, as the former is fairly common in 

 Tasmania, and the latter in Northern Australia. The Tasmanian 

 form appears in either of two entirely different phases. It nests 

 in the Lena River country, though I was not fortunate enough to 

 see its eggs and nest. 



A cold, strong wind from the south had encouraged many of 

 the Great Skuas {Megalestris antarctica) to go north into the 

 Indian Ocean. From that time on several travelled with us far 

 into our easting of the Leeuwin. Many, if not all, of them had 

 been bred on Kerguelen Island, further south. The illustration 

 shows a nesting-flat under Mount Wyville Thomson, on Kerguelen 

 Island, with the birds quarrelling for food over the bones of 

 elephant seals killecl by us. They were taken prior to this little 

 excursion that gave me so fine an opportunity for comparison 

 between the bird fauna of the Australian, Indian, and Eastern 

 Palcearctic regions. 



An Afternoon Among the Birds in the Baltimore 

 (Md.) Woods, United States of America. 



By Edwin Ashby. M.B.O.U., R.A.O.U. 



Ix company with a bird-lover, Mr. Hammond Brown, wlio has 

 done good service in popularizing the study of bird-life in the 

 State of Maryland, I visited the woods in the suburbs of the city 

 of Baltimore on the 6th July, 1918. 



On leaving the train we entered some low scrub bordering a small 

 creek. The first bird to attract our attention was a male Towhee 

 {Pipilo crythrophthalmus). The call was a sharp double note, 

 but later in the afternoon we heard it in full song. The male 

 chose a dead Bough near the top of an exposed tree, and there kept 

 up a not unpleasing series of four or five notes — " Tow-hee-e-e." 

 The male we saw was about 8 inches long, black head and back, 

 and a striking rufous patch along the side, tail long and tipped 

 with white. My companion then called my attention to the sharp 

 call of the Cardinal, one of the handsomest of the American birds. 

 In the thick leafage a Cat-Bird {Dumetella carolinensis) flew on to 

 a bough quite close to where we stood, and gave us a fine exhibi- 

 tion of its powers of song. While we were not favoured with its 

 whole repertoire, it went through quite a good series of warbles 

 and tiills, inters|)ersed ;it irregular interviils with its strange 



