PROCEEDINGS 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. IV, pp. 501-520. September 30, 1902. 



PAPERS FROM THE HOPKINS STANFORD GALA- 

 PAGOS EXPEDITION, 1898-1899. 



XI. 



THE BIRDS OF CLIPPERTON AND COCOS 

 ISLANDS. 



By Robert Evans Snodgrass and Edmund Heller. 



CONTENTS. 



Clipperton Island, described 501 



Cocos Island, desci'ibed 504 



Systematic account of the birds 505 



CLIPPERTON ISLAND. 



Clipperton Island bears the distinction of being the only 

 coral island of the eastern Pacific. It is a true atoll, two miles 

 across in its longest diameter. It lies in latitude 10° 17' north and 

 longitude 109° 13' west, being almost directly south of Cape San 

 Lucas, Lower California, and west of the northern part of Costa 

 Rica. It is about 600 miles distant from the nearest place on 

 the mainland, which is Tejupan Point at the south end of Man- 

 zanilla Bay, between San Bias and Acapulco, Mexico. Polit- 

 ically it belongs to Mexico. 



Its climate is hot and very humid. The water about it is 

 warm and the currents westerly. The Mexican current, which 

 flows southeast along the coast of Mexico, is deflected to the 

 westward in the latitude of Clipperton. Hence, the currents 

 which bathe the island come directly from the mainland, and 

 are responsible for the animals and plants now carried there by 

 Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., Sept., 1902. 501 



