32 

 ALCIDM. 



BRACHYRHAMPHUS CRAVE RI, {Salvad.) Coues [No. 70663]. 



TJria craven, Salvad., Descr. Alt. Nuov. Ucc. Mus. di Torino, 1867, 17. 

 BrachyrJiamphu8 craven, Coues, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1868, 66. 



Locality: Isla Eaza, Gulf of California. An adult female in full 

 plumage, taken in April, 1875. It was breeding in holes in the rocks, 

 amid the innumerable gathering of Larus heermanni, already noticed. 

 Eggs two, taken from a crevice of a rock at arm's length. These eggs 

 resemble those of the tern, though rather elliptical-ovoid in shape. 

 They differ from each other decidedly in the ground-color as well as in 

 the markings. The darkest one is brownish-drab, with nearly half of 

 the surface (on the larger end) heavily and confluently blotched with 

 reddish-brown and dark brown, with a few neutral-tint shell-markings 

 interspersed ; the rest of the egg is sparsely sprinkled with smaller and 

 more distinct markings of the same color. The ground of the other 

 egg is clay-colored, or very pale stone-gray, with markings of the same 

 colors as before, but less heavy, more distinct, and smaller. Ther« is 

 the same aggregation of spots about the larger end, but not so fully 

 carried out, and the rest of the surface is more thickly and uniformly 

 flecked than the same portion is on the other egg. The darker egg 

 measured 2.05 by 1.40 ; the other 1.95 by 1.35. The eggs of the species, 

 as far as we are aware, have not before been described. 



The specimen of the bird is interesting as coming from far up the 

 gulf, from virtually the same locality as the original of Uria craveri, if 

 not from the identical spot, and is Signore Salvadori's bird exactly. As 

 stated by Dr. Coues, in his Monograph (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 

 1868, p. 66), it is very closely related to B. hypoleucus, the chief differ- 

 ence being, that in the latter the lining of the wings is entirely pure 

 white, while in craveri the same part is dusky varied with white. In 

 craveri, the line of demarkation between the blackish of the upper and 

 the white of the under parts passes on the side of the head consider- 

 ably below the eye ; while in hypoleucus the blackish barely includes 

 the eye, though extending a little farther down on the auriculars. Dr. 

 Coues alludes to the " bare possibility " that craveri was the young of 

 hypoleucus, a supposition disproved by finding it breeding. B. craveri can 

 only be referred to hypoleucus now, upon the assumption that the latter 

 is the winter plumage of the former, as all the specimens which have 



