OCEAN WANDERERS j s< 



these ocean wanderers, and have come to know 

 them quite intimately, as they are seen in this part 

 of the world. Yet a most interesting part of their 

 career is still buried in obscurity. The Shearwaters 

 are now believed to breed in the Antarctic regions 

 during the southern summer, about January or 

 February. Like their allies the Petrels, they nest 

 in burrows in the ground or holes in cliffs. After 

 this they start wandering, and where do they not 

 go over earth's oceans ? They wander up the 

 southern seas, cross the equator, and, according to 

 the fishermen, appear off Nova Scotia and on the 

 " Banks " about the first of May, following the 

 migration of various fish. They are found all over 

 the northern ocean until autumn, when they gradu- 

 ally withdraw, as cold weather comes on. The 

 fishermen rarely or never see them in winter, and I 

 myself have seen but one, a Greater Shearwater, I 

 took it to be, the last day of one December, about 

 eight miles off Chatham. 



The Jaegers, on the contrary, are raised in 

 northern latitudes, in the short summer of the 

 barren arctic solitudes. Thence they begin to wan- 

 der down to the New England coast in July. By 

 August they become common, and in September 

 and October they are abundant in suitable localities 

 on the ocean. With the advent of winter most of 

 them proceed further south. 



Our Petrels are both northerners and southerners. 

 There are two kinds common on our coast 

 Leach's and Wilson's Petrels. The only perceptible 

 difference between them is that the former has a 

 forked tail and black webs between its toes, the latter 



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