ce | Hursey, Birds at St. Michael, Alaska. 153 
no young were seen while the presence of a Short-eared Owl upon 
the island seemed to explain the cause. The Owl had apparently 
destroyed all the young and most of the adults as several subsequent 
counts showed only thirteen birds remaining. 
The other colony mentioned by Mr. Nelson (at Kegiktowik) I 
did not visit. A man was engaged to take me there but the break- 
ing of the propeller shaft on his boat forced me to give up the trip 
as no other boat could be secured. Inquiries were made of a trader 
who sometimes stopped at the village and it was learned that a 
few “small gulls” (perhaps Aleutian Terns?) nested there. So 
far as I know these are the only breeding colonies of this species on 
the Alaskan coast. 
Mr. Nelson states that a few Violet-green Cormorants nest near 
St. Michael but they are never very numerous. No cormorant, of 
any kind, was seen during my stay there and I doubt if any now 
breed there. 
It is probable that the greatest decrease in the abundance of bird- 
life in this locality is to be found in the members of the order Anseres. 
While ducks, as a whole, were quite abundant, their numbers were 
much less than at the time Mr. Nelson’s observations were made. 
When the ice first breaks up in the bay flocks of Red-breasted 
Mergansers, Scoters (O. americana) and Pacific Eiders are to be 
found congregated about the rocky projections of small islands, 
or resting and preening their feathers on large ice cakes about the 
entrance to the canal. The Eiders remain all summer and breed, 
but are confined to the strip of tundra bordering the bay and were 
never found very far back from the open water. They also are 
plentiful on Stuart Island. The Scoters all disappear after the 
first days in June and I never found any evidence of their breeding. 
The Red-breasted Mergansers also were not seen after the ice left 
the bay, but durmg August I obtained three or four half grown 
young, so a few still breed there. 
Back on the tundra spring arrives earlier than it does about the 
bay. The ice breaks up in the tundra ponds and the snow nearly 
all disappears long before the sea ice goes out. A trip through the 
canal at the time of the “break-up” shows the small ponds to be 
filled with ducks of several species. The Pintail is most numerous 
and probably nearly, if not quite, equals the combined totals of all 
