38 JOURNAI. OP MAINP: ORNITHOI.OGICAL SOCIKTY. 



and apparently settled down for the ni<;ht. Here we left them and 

 another experiment in game propagation is under way. 



Will they survive or no ? It is to be hoped that the optimists 

 may win this time, for it would be a great pity to lose these beauti- 

 ful little creatures. For their welfare during all but the bitterest of 

 our weather there need be no fear, 1)ut the furnishing of the table of 

 a bird who depends mainly on grain and insects for its sustenance 

 may become a vital issue when our northern winter descends u])on 

 us, and when the door of the North Pole swings open about January 

 15th to stand wide until March 20th, and the north wind comes 

 down, swirling and heaping the snow through the woods and over 

 the open, I greatly fear that these little folk will regret the day they 

 left the billowing grain fields and sunny vine-clad slopes of far-off 

 Hungary. 



Occasional Notes on Birds at Sea. 



By Dr. Wiij^iam C. Kendai^i,, Scientific Assistant U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 



The following notes were made by the writer while serving as 

 naturalist on the U. S. Fish Commission Schooner, "Grampus," in 

 1 89 1, 1894 and 1895, during cruises connected with enquiries relat- 

 ing to mackerel. These cruises extended from off the coast of Vir- 

 ginia to the Gulf of St. I^awrence, and even southern I^abrador, but 

 all of the notes are not now available, thus rendering those following 

 more or less fragmentary, desultory and indefinite. They are copied 

 almost verbatim from the available notes, about the only change being 

 that of adjusting such technical names as were used to the more 

 modern nomenclature of "Knight's Birds of Maine." Owing to the 

 writer's unfamiliarity with birds, unfortunately they could not always 

 be identified with certainty when at a distance, and in the case of the 

 Petrels not even when in hand. Therefore when the species is in 

 the least in doubt the technical name when used is questioned. 

 Many references are to Phalaropes without specifying the particular 

 species. This is due mainly to inability to determine which they 



