Taverner and Swales, on Birds of Point Pelee. 133 



house. When thoroughly cooked and thinned out with rice 

 or grapenut it proved very palatable ! An Indian's perceptions 

 of a white man's gustatory sensibilities are minus infinity. 



Once afloat upon as calm a sea as one could hope for even 

 on the famed Pacific, our way lay among rocks and islets alive 

 with birds. It was hard to pass them by when so many superb 

 pictures were floating about. The good days coming when 

 a portable camera will be able to catch the pictures as the eyes 

 see them' — are they near at hand? Now we must be content 

 with scarcely more than suggestions of the most that we see. 



Our course lay to the Indian village of La Push, near the 

 mouth of the Ouillyute river, past Carroll Islet where the best 

 part of our work was to be done. The story of this "Bird 

 Paradise" will be told later. 



THE BIRDS OF POINT PELEE. 



BY P. A. TAVEBNEB AND B. H. SWALES. 



(Continued from page 99.) 



85. *Coccyzus americanus. — Yellow-billed Cuckoo. 



A common and well distributed species in all wooded sections of 

 the Point. Noted May 13, 1905, to September 10, 1905. Likely later 

 birds have been overlooked, as in the adjoining Michigan territory 

 they remain in limited numbers until the end of the first week of 

 October. During the first three days of September, 1006, both spe- 

 cies were unusually abundant, but when we made our second visit 

 from September 15 to the 22d, their numbers were much diminished, 

 and none of this species were noted, and but few of the next. From 

 May 30 to June 1, 1907, cuckoos were remarkably scarce, and the 

 only indication of their presence on the Point was furnished by a 

 small pile of feathers of one of this species that marked the place 

 where one had been eaten by a hawk. During the first few days of 

 the Sharp-shin flights of 1905-6 the cuckoos suffered severely under 

 their depredations and, until the arrival of the Olive-backed and 

 Gray-cheeked Thrushes, seemed to be the staple of their food supply. 



86. ^Coccyzus erythrophtliaJmiis. — Black-billed Cuckoo. 



As far as we have been able to judge without carefully looking up 

 every cuckoo noted, the two species are about equally divided in 

 numbers on the Point. If anything the Blact-bill is slightly in the 

 minority'. We have positively identified none later than September 

 14, 1905. 



