18 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Vol. 6-No. 3. 



ful faculty for worming his way through 

 the grass, and at a sharp angle from his 

 Hne of flight, but whether to the right or 

 left I could not know until he arose again. 

 It was only after several attempts that I 

 succeeded in capturing him. 



The musical performance of this bird 

 has very little to commend it ; though con- 

 sidenng the poor success he meets with, 

 his performance is certainly praiseworthy. 

 When the muse inspires his breast he 

 mounts to the top of a weed or some other 

 object that raises him just above the grass. 

 There he sits demurely until the sjiirit 

 moves, when he suddenly throws up his 

 head and with an appearance of much ef- 

 fort, jerks out his monosyllabic ''tsip," ap- 

 parently with great satisfaction. Then, 

 having relieved himself he drops his head 

 and waits patiently for his little cup to 

 fill again. Somehow I cannot watch him 

 while thus engaged, without a feeling of 

 pity for a creature so constituted that he 

 can be satisfied with such a performance, 

 and content with his surroundings. 



C. M. Jones, Eastford, Conn. 



Collecting on the Pacific Coast. 



June 26, 1880, on my return from a collect- 

 ing trip in the Interior, I started for "Punta 

 de los ReyoB," Point Reyos; a barren, dis- 

 mal, rocky place, such as is seldom visited 

 by a collector. Excepting in a few places 

 the cliifs are iu accessible, and here amid 

 the din and roar of old Ocean, thousands 

 of Brants, Cormorants Graculus pencilla- 

 tus, and Violet Green Connorants, Gracu- 

 lus violaceus, build their nests and rear 

 their young. There was also a few Tufted 

 Puffins, Mormon cirrhata, Western Guille- 

 mots, Uria colutnba, with a few pairs of 

 Western Gulls, Larus occidentalus, and 

 two pairs of Wandering Tattlers, Heterosce- 

 lus brevipes. The latter had no doubt 

 nests, as they would not leave two im- 

 mense caverns which were formed in the 

 face of the cliflf by the action of the water. 

 While perched on a rocky point between 

 the two caverns shooting the M. cirrhata 



as they circled about my head, the M. bre- 

 vipes would come flying out with their 

 shrill piping cry only to return again, and 

 at the next report the same scene would 

 be enacted. At the report of the gun the 

 air would be filled with birds circling 

 about, each giving out their peculiar cry. 

 But only those nearest could be heard, 

 such was the terrific din and crash made 

 by the Pacific ocean against the face of 

 the cliff and in the caverns, large and 

 small, worn in the solid rock by countless 

 ages of the washing of the cruel and re- 

 lentless waves that know no rest, day or 

 night. I could sit on a few favorable 

 pomts and look into hundreds of nests, 

 filled with their treasures, "so near and 

 yet so far," bvit the steep and perpendicu- 

 lar cliffs afforded no foothold whatever. 

 One place in particular, a narrow shelf of 

 rock about twenty feet above the water 

 and on which were eight nests of IT. colutn- 

 ba with the birds on the nests, not one of 

 which could be obtained except by being 

 lowered from the cliff above for a distance 

 of 200 feet by a rope. The X. occidentalus 

 had already hatched and the downy, half- 

 fledged young were easily caught, when 

 the old ones came darting and circling 

 around me with a continuous screaming 

 cry that sounded above the roar of the 

 surf and set hundreds of other birds in 

 motion so .that to watch them whirling 

 about one's head produced a dizziness. I 

 was soon glad to release the little things, 

 as they kept biting so viciously. So I 

 gave each a toss in the air and they went 

 whirling down over the cliffs until they 

 struck the water when most of them pad- 

 dled off to sea, while the old ones dispers- 

 ed in search of food. The cliffs range in 

 hight from one hundred and fifty to seven 

 hundred feet, and are inaccessible except 

 in a few places where I made out to get a 

 few sets of G. pencillntns. I remained 

 here three days and secured more skins 

 than eggs. Only a small percentage of 

 the birds shot could be secured as they 

 drifted into caverns and among the rocks 



