Vol. xvr 

 1899 . 



Pearson, Some North Carolina Birds. 21Q 



old enough to walk about on the limbs of the trees. In all 150 inhabited 

 nests were counted. 



The trees holding a number of nests each were evidently old breeding 

 places, for the trunks, limbs, twigs, and every nest was as white from the 

 dried excrement of the birds as though buckets of whitewash had been 

 thrown over all with a generous hand. All signs of life had gone out of 

 the trees save a few bunches of green leaves at the extreme ends of some 

 of the smaller twigs. 



No other colony of Cormorants was located, although a roost contain- 

 ing some 200 birds was discovered in an adjoining county. 



Stercorarius parasiticus. Parasitic Jaeger. — These birds are reported 

 bv fishermen and life saving station men to occur along our coast during 

 the fall of the year, at which time they are often seen chasing Gulls in 

 order to secure their disgorged prey. 



In looking over the collection of a taxadermist, Mr. A. Piner, at that 

 time located in Morehead City, N. C, the owner showed me some 

 strange birds which he had taken at various times and for which he had 

 no name. Two of these proved to be Razor-billed Auks (Alca torda) 

 taken in Lookout Cove, " sometime after Christmas in the winter of 

 1S90." Another bird which he had secured near Cape Lookout in the 

 autumn of 1897 I found to be an immature S. parasiticus. Neither this 

 bird nor the following named species are included in the list of North 

 Carolina birds, published by Atkinson in 1SS7, or the one issued by 

 Smithwick in 1897. 



Oceanites oceanicus. Wilson's Petrel. — This Petrel is well known to 

 all who have occasion to spend much time on the ocean off the Carolina 

 coast in summer. The biids are seldom seen near the shore unless dur- 

 ing windy weather, when on such occasions they are often present in 

 large numbers. During the severe storm which raged on the coast Aug- 

 ust 2S, 29, and 30, 1893, many thousands of these birds were driven and 

 washed ashore along the line of beach extending from the mouth of 

 Beaufort Harbor to Cape Lookout, a distance of ten miles. I have this 

 information from several reliable parties. The date of the storm was 

 taken from the log-book of Capt. Wm. II. Gaskin of the Cape Lookout 

 Life Saving Station. 



Mr. James Davis, a well known business man in Beaufort, who had 

 occasion to go along the beach to a wreck just after the storm, says : 

 " Every two or three yards la}' a Mother Cary's Chicken ; many were 

 dead, others were alive but too weak to fly. In places two or three would 

 be lying together; at certain points for a distance of many feet the 

 ground would be completely covered with the bodies, sometimes piled 

 two or three deep. This was frequently the case until I reached the 

 bight of the cape. Mere in the cove the slaughter had been tremendous. 

 Thousands of birds sat or lay on the ground, covering the beach like a 

 blanket, extending from the water's edge up into the grass on the higher 



