224 Anthony o>i the Black-vented Shearwater. Ill 



this opportunity of giving some of my notes in detail, while 

 establishing its claim to a position among our breeding birds. 



On May 15, 1892, in company with Messrs. Charles H. Town- 

 send and Clark P. Streator, I reached Guadalupe Island from 

 San Diego and anchored under the high cliffs of lava at the North 

 Head, about the middle of the afternoon. 



Guadalupe lies about 220 miles south of San Diego, and about 

 65 miles from the nearest mainland, Punta Baja, on the Penin- 

 sula. The island is entirely of volcanic matter, huge cliffs of 

 lava rising often 3000 feet from the sea. These are honey-combed 

 by thousands of holes and miniature caves, offering unexcelled 

 nesting sites for Cassin's Auklet, Xantus's Murrelet and other 

 burrowing species, including the Black-vented Shearwater. 

 Shortly after dark I was called on deck to listen to and identify 

 some bird notes that came from the crags almost over our little 

 schooner. The outcry soon increased to a moderate uproar, and 

 was immediately recognized as the breeding notes of Puffiiuts 

 opisthomelas, which I had several times heard in January and Feb- 

 ruary while the birds were mating off the coast of San Diego 

 County. 



It would be impossible to describe accurately these notes. 

 They were a series of gasping wheezy cries, resembling somewhat 

 the escape of steam through a partly clogged pipe, uttered in a 

 slightly varied key and repeated from four or live, to ten times. 

 During calm weather in January, February, and March flocks of a 

 dozen to several hundred of these Shearwaters often collect on 

 the water well off shore and at such times I have heard the same 

 notes from two or more birds as they chased each other, half 

 running, half flying over the water. From the notes that came from 

 the cliffs I thought that the birds were chasing one another, and a 

 little later many of them came down to the water and were 

 occasionally seen as they flashed by within the circle cast by our 

 anchor light. After an hour or so the outcry somewhat subsided 

 and I think most of the birds went off shore to feed, returning 

 before daylight, for during nearly two weeks spent in cruising about 

 the island only one flock of Shearwaters was seen in the daytime. 



The cliffs about the North Head are all inaccessible, rising 

 directly from the water, from a few hundred, to nearly or quite 



