THE KAEDING PETREL. 875 
are available; but whether this offering is intended for a ransom or only the 
result of fright, one cannot certainly tell. 
We had been working in the turf plot looking only for fresh eggs and 
taking pains to replace the chicks—tiny balls of slate-colored down with feet 
of a deathly pallor and bills jet black, stupid also as balls of mud—wherever 
found. But after having waded thru the heavily grassed portion of the 
island once or twice, the thought occurred to us that there might be Petrels 
there. Judge of our surprise, however, when we found the vegetable mold a 
perfect labyrinth of Petrel burrows! So light was the accumulation in point 
of density (once the growing blades were penetrated) and so abundant the 
birds that one had only to dig with the hands, dog-fashion, and birds, eggs, 
and young were the invariable result. The whole half-acre of grass proper 
was a seething mass of Petrels. Yet from all that host not a sound to betray 
their presence! The sun shone calmly and the breeze blew benignly. Nothing 
disturbed the serenity of the day save the restless quaverings of the always 
hostile gulls. There was nothing, in short, to indicate that beneath our feet 
lay a buried city, not once populous and now deserted, but now teeming with 
life, a city of storm-waifs, gathered from an expanse of a thousand watery 
leagues, a city perhaps more populous than any other colony of the class Aves 
within the limits of Washington, lying silent where the eye saw only waving 
grass. The promise of the situation so wrought upon us that we determined 
to return at evening some time later, and did so on Monday evening following, 
July 23rd. 
We arrived a little after nine o'clock, provided with matches, bedding, 
and water, and prepared to spend the night. We found the island still silent, 
but we used the remaining moments of twilight to further determine the limits 
of the colony; and found that the dense salmon-berry thicket was likewise 
occupied by Petrel burrows. 
At about ten o’clock the first note was sounded—from the ground. In 
quality like that of a tiny cockerell, in accent like that of a glib paroquet, came 
the cry, Petteretterctterell, etterettcretterell. ‘The second phrase is slightly 
fainter than the first, and is, therefore, just suggestively an echo of it. After 
ten minutes, or sucha matter, one sounded in the air. By and by came another 
and another. And so the matter grew until by eleven p. m. the air was a-flutter 
with sable wings, and the island a-hum with t’s and r’s and I's. This hour was 
typical of the entire night, altho the pace was perhaps a little more furious at 
one o'clock, when we roused for another observation. We had spread our 
blankets in the center of the grass field, regretful of the fact that the portion 
of the population wider us must needs go supperless for that night. Perhaps, 
therefore, it was our presence which stirred the birds to unusual demon- 
strativeness, but I am not at all certain that this was the case, or that our 
presence affected the situation in the slightest degree. 
