4 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



great storm occurred on the 4th.* On the 10th, nth, and 

 1 2th (the last days observations were made) the sea was 

 very still, and many Black-vented Shearwaters were mi- 

 grating. On the morning of the 10th, between eight and 

 nine o'clock, individuals and small companies to the num- 

 ber of about five hundred passed southward by my station 

 two or three miles northeast of Point Pinos. During the 

 remainder of the forenoon only a few were observed. 

 Several were found resting on the ocean early in the after- 

 noon. During the closing hours of the day another flight 

 of these Shearwaters took place, several hundred being 

 seen. When I left the ocean at sundown it was still un- 

 der headway. Most of them passed Point Pinos between 

 three and four miles offshore. None were noticed nearer 

 to it than a mile or further out than six miles. 



The sky was cloudless and the ocean like glass all day 

 long on the nth. In the forenoon about two thousand 

 Black-vented Shearwaters were seen going south. The 

 height of the movement was between eight and quarter 

 past ten. During the latter half of the afternoon about 

 a thousand more were observed. Both forenoon and 

 afternoon I went out on the ocean fully six miles beyond 

 Point Pinos. At this distance the minor features of the 

 coast fade from view, leaving only the bolder outline ris- 

 ing in the background to the summits of the mountains. 

 The majority of the Shearwaters passed Point Pinos be- 

 tween three and four miles from land. Stationed further 

 out at sea I could watch them in their flight down the coast 



* As there are no storms on this coast in summer, the early southward 

 migrations are but little influenced by the weather. The intervals between 

 the waves, as in the Dark-bodied Shearwater ('No. 1,' pp. 193, 206), may 

 have been due to local distribution over the ocean. Variation in the time 

 of breeding, such as occurred in Brandt's Cormorant (1. c, p. 218), would 

 account in part for the hiatus existing between the movements of the Cali- 

 fornia Murre. 



