BREWSTER: BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. 9393 
which he and others have met with at the Santa Barbara Islands,! where it was 
also seen by Mr. Grinnell in “ the spring of ’97.”? 
On July 10, 1896, Mr. Anthony found some Black and Socorro Petrels 
breeding together on one of the Coronado Islands (in the Gulf of California), 
but although the two fresh eggs (taken with the parent birds) of the former 
species which he obtained on this occasion were new to science, his description 
of them is limited to the remark that, like all those which he has ‘‘ subse- 
quently handled,” they “ were unmarked.” His account ® of this colony is so 
involved and so obscurely worded as to leave the reader in doubt as to which 
of the two species just mentioned many of the passages relate. Apparently 
only a few of the birds were positively identified, owing partly to their noc- 
turnal habits, partly to the fact that most of their nests were in holes ‘‘ under 
very large boulders or in cracks in the ledges,’’ where it was impossible to 
get at them. Mr. Anthony states definitely, however, that the Black Petrel is 
an exceptionally late breeder, and that he has found it “incubating as late as 
September 8.” He also says that it makes little attempt at nest-building, 
“though a few sticks are often dragged into the burrow with an evident desire 
to construct something resembling a nest.” He makes no mention in this 
article of having found the Black Petrel breeding elsewhere than on Coronado 
Island, but I have an egg which was taken by him on San Benito Island, off 
the Pacific coast of the Peninsula, on July 26, 1896. In shape it is elliptical 
ovate, in color dead white, without markings or gloss. It measures 1.38 
x 1.04. 
At a meeting of the A. O. U. Committee on Nomenclature, held in Wash- 
ington in 1895, Mr. Ridgway stated that he had sent specimens of his Oceano- 
droma townsendit to Mr. Salvin, who, on comparing them with the type of 
O. melania in the Paris Museum, failed to find any differences by which the 
two could be distinguished. 
Phaéthon aethereus Linn. 
RED-BILLED TROPIC Brrp. 
Phaéthon aethereus Betp1nG, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., V. 1883, 545 (Cape Region ; Es- 
piritu Santo Islands). AnrHony, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 2d ser., II. 1889, 
86 (lat. of Cape St. Lucas). Bryant, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 2d ser., II. 
1889, 253 (Espiritu Santo Island). 
Mr. Anthony asserts that the Red-billed Tropic Bird “has been regularly 
met with”’ in the latitude of Cape St. Lucas and occasionally further north. 
A specimen was obtained by Mr. Belding at Espiritu Santo Island on Feb- 
ruary 1, 1882, and a single bird which probably belonged to this species was 
1 Auk, IV. 1887, 87. 
2 Pub. II. Pasadena Acad. Sci., 1898, 9. 
3 Auk, XV. 1898, 140-144. 
VOL. XLI. — No. 1 3 
