70 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



incubating mates which in turn go out to feed, and all this is 

 accompanied by voluble requests "for terbacker" etc. It is 

 indeed a strange experience to spend the early evening in a 

 Petrel colony, having birds either already on wing or trying to 

 get on wing bump into you from time to time, uttering weird 

 cries, as they circle by. 



Some eggs are pure white while others are finely dotted with 

 purple, red and lilac, the markings in many instances forming 

 a perfect wreath about the larger end of the egg. An egg 

 from Green Island, Penobscot Bay, June 20, 1896, measures 

 1.34 X 0.97. Another from the same place measures 1.31 x 

 0.99 while one from Seal Island, July 5, 1893, measures 0.99 

 X 0.78. This latter is unusually small. On the least provo- 

 cation by handling them the birds spit a quantity of clear, 

 musky smelling oil from their mouth or nostrils or both, and 

 the odor of this persists for a long time on everything it 

 touches. Their food is gleaned from the surface, the birds 

 often walking on the water with flapping wings while feeding. 

 Their usual stomach contents are small crustaceans and surface 

 forms of marine life, but they greedily feed on fish cleanings 

 and offal thrown over from vessels. While I know nothing 

 concerning the incubation period except that it must be some- 

 what prolonged, I am able to say that I have failed to find 

 young in any nests examined as late as July 15 in one instance, 

 and as eggs may be found as early as June 15 we have some 

 indication that incubation is apt to be prolonged. 



Subfamily OCEANITIN^. 

 Genus OCEANITES Keyserling and Blasius. 



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



Plumage : longer upper tail coverts white ; wing coverts grayish, margined 

 with lighter ; bill and feet black ; webs of feet with yellow ; general color 

 sooty black somewhat lighter beneath. Wing 5.70 to 6.25; culmen 0.50; 

 tarsus 1.32; tail 3.00. 



Geog. Dist. — Atlantic Ocean, breeding in southern latitudes such as 

 Kerguelen Island, migrating northward in the summer season north of the 

 equator ; cosmopolitan. 



