JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



lands perhaps eight huudnd pair, aud 

 on Little Duck perhaps fifteen hundred 

 pair nest annually, but from the mere 

 nature of their habits anything like an 

 accurate estimate of their number is 

 im[)Ossible. 



Sometimes during the day, but far 

 oftener in the evening, these birds may 

 be seen lightly skimming over the sur- 

 face of the water, or half walking and 

 half hopping along between water and 

 air, aud engaged in feeding on the small 

 surface swimming crustaceans, or hover- 

 ing to the leeward of some floating car- 

 cass, seemingly engaged in skimming 

 up the grease that floats from it, al- 

 though perhaps in reality the}' in:<3' '"e 

 eating small particles of the decompos- 

 ing flesh. 



From their habit of walking on the 

 water their name of Petrel, meaning 

 Little Peter, is derived. They are tire- 

 less on the wing or in the water and the 

 greater part of their lives is spent on the 

 fishing banks far from land. 



About the lirst of June they repair to 

 the islands where they and their progen- 

 itors have nested for years past. Here 

 they either reconstruct burrows used the 

 previous year or dig new ones. As I 

 have always found two birds in such 

 burrows as were occupied, but which 

 contained no eggs, it would seem rea- 

 sonable to infer that both biids assist in 

 constructing the nest. The hole is usu- 

 ally from one and one-half to three feet 

 long, and somewhat circuitous, gradu- 

 ally descending and then slightly ascend- 

 ing and enlarging into a chamber lined 

 with dry grass, weed leaves and rootlets, 

 or more rarely fine sea algae. All the 

 nests found on the Green Islands were 

 lined with fine black algae, and this is the 

 only colony which I have observed thus 



lining their nests. The chamber is six 

 to eight inches in diameter. 



About June 20th on opening the bur- 

 rows only one bird will be found in each, 

 engaged in incubating a single white 

 egg which is wreaiiied or lightly dotted 

 about the larger end with reddish. An 

 occasional egg is laid as early as June 

 loth, and fresh eggs may be found as 

 late as July 5th. At this latter date I 

 have examined or seen examined at 

 least fom- hundred nests in hopes of 

 finding some young hatched, but all 

 contained eggs some of which were near- 

 ly fresh and others far advanced in 

 incubation, so far in fact that they must 

 have hatched in a day or so. 



From thee%idence at hand we may 

 safely assert that it takes I'etrel eggs at 

 least thi'ee weeks and more probably a 

 month to hatch. It is rather an open 

 question as to the length of time re- 

 quired for the young to become full 

 Hedged. I do know that fishermen 

 whose reliability I have no reason to 

 doubt have told me that they have found 

 halffledgid young in the burrows as 

 late as the middle of September. Some 

 fishermen have asserted that the youug 

 remained in the nests until spring before 

 becoming fledged, and possibly this 

 story (which is of course a mistake pure 

 and simple) may have originated from 

 their finding one or two frozen young in 

 the burrows in early spring.* 



The set is always one in number, 

 white in color and often spotless, but 

 usually wreathed about the larger end 

 with lavender, lilac, or reddish brown. 

 Selected specimens measure 1.39 x .89, 

 1.27 X .94, 1.24 X .90. 



When walking about over the islands 



* If other observers have ever heard the same 

 statement made 1 wish they would write me the 

 jiarticulars. 



