10 Contributions from the Charleston Museum. 



25. Oceanites oceanicus (Kuhl). Wilson's Petrel. 



This species is a common summer and early autumn visitant 

 oflf our coast. It breeds in the southern hemisphere, and, after 

 the breeding season is over, the birds migrate northward to spend 

 the winter off the North American coast. Anyone who makes a 

 voyage from Charleston to New York in the summer months, 

 can see numbers of these ocean wanderers as soon as the ship 

 gets beyond the sight of land. When food is thrown overboard 

 the petrels immediately gather and quickly dispose of the most 

 tempting morsels. 



ORDER STEGANOPODES: TOTIPALMATE 

 SWIMMERS. 



FAMILY SULID.E : G AX NETS. 



26. Sula leucogastra (Bodd.). Booby. 



There were at least four specimens of this species in the Char- 

 leston Museum, labeled "South Carohna" by Dr. John Bach- 

 man. All of these birds were in immature plumage. 



The Booby is a tropical species. 



27. Sula bassana (Linn.). Gannet. 



The Gannet occurs regularly along the coast during both mi- 

 grations, but I have never seen it during the Tsdnter months, 

 although it winters off the mouth of the St. John's River, Florida, 

 in considerable numbers. 



Audubon states: ^ 



My friend John Bachman has informed me that during one of ins visits to 

 the Sea Islands off the shores of South Carolina, on the 2nd of July, 1836, he ob- 

 served a flock of Gannets of from fifty to a hundred, all of the colouring of the 

 one in my plate, and which was a bird in its first winter plumage. They were 

 seen during several days on and about Cole's Island, at times on the sands, at 

 others among the roUing breakers. He also mentions having heard Mr. Giles, an 

 acquaintance of his, who knows much about birds, say, that in the course of the 

 preceding summer he had seen a pair of Gannets going to, and returning from, a 

 nest in a tree I 



Dr. Bachman must certainly have been mistaken, as the latest 

 date upon which this species has yet been seen and secured is 

 May, 1885, when Mr. William Brewster, in whose company I was, 

 shot one on SulHvan's Island. The Snake Bird or "Water Turkey" 



> Birds of America, VII, 47. 



