360 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



cality of the species was to obtain a series of specimens. 

 To facilitate the work of collecting, the services of all 

 the children on the island were enlisted "to smell for 

 Petrels." The first one discovered had white upper tail- 

 coverts. This was indeed a surprise. South Farallon 

 having been visited so many times by ornithologists, it 

 was not supposed there still remained a species to be 

 added to the list of its breeding birds.* The specimen 

 was found in a pile of large stones extending for several 

 rods around the base of the light-tower hill, east of the 

 keepers' dwellings. In the course of an hour three other 

 individuals were secured — all from one end of the pile. 

 The other end appeared to be tenanted exclusively by 

 Ashy Petrels. On succeeding days two more were dis- 

 covered in the same situation. One of these, as its hab- 

 itation was being uncovered, escaped through an unob- 

 served outlet, rising readily on wing and disappearing in 

 the direction of the ocean. This was the only individual 

 of either species that sought security in flight. A seventh 

 example was picked up dead at the foot of the lighthouse 

 tower. Search in other parts of the island revealed only 

 Ashy Petrels. However, one of the eggers told me that 

 the majority of the parents of the thirty eggs he collected 

 in June had white at the base of the tail. Many of them, 

 he said, were under drift-wood. The lighthouse people 

 were also aware that some of the Petrels had this white 

 patch, but they attributed the peculiarity to age or sex. 

 With the exception of one, whose charge was a chick 



'Besides the ten water birds enumerated in this paper, two land species 

 are known to occur as breeders on South Farallon — the Rock Wren and the 

 Raven. The former is abundant, but the latter is hardly more than a 

 straggler. 



At the time Dr. Heermaun wrote, the Rhinoceros Auklet bred upon the- 

 'Farrallones' (P. R.R. Rep., vol. x, pt. iv, No. 2, p. 75). Thorough inves- 

 tigation may disclose that it has not been entirely driven away. 



