53 



THE OSrREY. 



Until recently they have been 

 considered winter visitors, their 

 breeding- resorts being un- 

 known. Now they are known 

 to be of antarctic orig-in, nest- 

 ing in remote southern lati- 

 tudes in our winter season, then 

 wanderitig up to the other end 

 of the earth, spending their 

 winter with us in our summer 

 months. They begin to arrive 

 on the New England coast in 

 May, following the first 

 schools of small fish, and are 

 most plentiful in June, July 

 and August. The numbers 

 begin to lessen in September, 

 and by the last of October or 

 first of November they prac- 

 tically disappear, being seldom 

 if ever seen in winter. I am 

 confident of having seen a 

 single Greater Shearwater De- 

 cember 31, but if so, it was a 

 straggler from the great horde 

 headed for the far south. 



Another of our summer visitors from the 

 south is Wilson's Petrel, whose migrations seem 

 to correspond with those of the Shearwaters, 

 both in time and extent. One can find Petrels 

 off the Massachusetts coast at any time of the 

 year, but my experience has been that, aside 

 from possible rare stragglers, those seen in 

 summer are Wilson's, those in winter, Leach's, 

 the two intermingling in spring' and fall. Tlie 

 Leach's breed abundantly on the islands off the 

 coast of Maine, where I have found them by the 

 thousand laying about June 15 — and from there 

 northward, one seldom sees a bird flying near the 

 breeding grounds, except at nig^ht. Both sexes 

 take turns in warming the white egg in the rat- 

 like burrow, relieving- one another at night. 

 The ones not thus occupied seem to fly far nut to 

 sea, wliere. in that latitude, they doubtless 



"We hart Baited up a Large Flock." 



mingle with the other species. I think that 

 most of Leach's wander in winter further south- 

 ward than Massachusetts, as I have never met 



them at that season, and the fishermen say they 

 are very rarely seen. It is amazing; that such 

 frail little things can survive the raging-s of the 

 ocean, never taking refuge on land e.xcept to 

 breed, and that our little southerner can fly 

 froui Kerg'-uelen's Land to Massachusetts and 

 back without fatal weariness. That sometimes, 

 however, a severe storm is too much for them I 

 believe from seeing, during the violent easterly 

 gale of October 11-13, 1896, a poor Leach's 

 Petrel, bedrag-g-Ied, oil-smeared and almost dead, 

 wash a-.hore on Cape Cod, and lie fluttering on 

 the beach, unable to rise. 



Though I had met occasional flocks of Phalar- 



opes off Chatham. I had no idea of their real 



abundance until I visited Cape Sable. N. S., in 



August, 1895. Haifa dozen miles off the cape 



the ocean was fairly alive with these tiny and 



beautiful birds. C)ne day thei-e were literally 



acres of them. As I 



rowed toward them 



in the ship's boat 



they did not fly, but 



s i m p 1 y o pe n e d a 



c h a n n e 1 for me 



t h r o u g- h their 



ranks, closing up 



again when I had 



passed. Most of 



them are Northern 



Phalaropes ( Lobipes 



liypcrhorens ), with a 



few Red Phalaropes 



[Phalaropus fidicar- 



i It s ), scattered i n 



among- them. All 



the red breasts have 



become white by 



about the middle of 



Augu,st. I have met 



the Northern Phala- 



rope on the coast of 



Maine as late as the 



middle of June, and 



they begin to return at Cape Sable toward 



the end of July. The time of special abund- 



^auce is the last half of August. By the middle 



