300 Ornithology of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 
however, gave me ocular evidence how fanciful were all 
these legends of the * Mother Carey’s Chickens,” and how 
easily better information might have been obtained. I was 
four days among the group of islands clustered around Grand 
Manan, and there I found these birds preparing to breed in 
considerable numbers. Duck Island, where I chiefly staid, 
is a small, inhabited island. Here the Petrels are much dis- 
turbed by cats, dogs, and boys, and partly in consequence of 
these annoyances, I presume, they were more dilatory in 
their family arrangements than elsewhere, on the uninhabited 
islands in the same group. Although it was as late as the 
middle of June, I could with all the diligence I could employ, 
find none on that island that had begun to lay. They breed 
in holes in the ground, in hollow roots of trees, and in similar 
places. In some instances these excavations were apparently 
made by the birds themselves, with great labor, which it must 
have taken some time to perform. Part of the island is wooded, 
and the roots, above ground, and exposed to the inclemencies 
of the weather were, to a great extent, decayed and hollow 
at the centre. These roots I found to be their favorite 
place of resort, and there they were safe from all their ene- 
mies but man. They emit a strong and peculiar odor, and 
by it are easily tracked with a dog, or even without one, 
with one's own olfactories. In all instances where I o 
served the Forked-tail in its breeding-places, prior to depositing 
its solitary egg, I found the pair closely huddled together, 
apparently passing a loving honey-moon. On the 16th of 
e same month I found the same birds in their breeding 
places on Green Islands, which are uninhabited. There I 
found only females in their burrows sitting each on a single 
egg. I did not succeed in finding more than one egg in & 
nest, nor where there was an egg, more than one bird. It is 
possible the males were in quest of food for their mates, but 
I saw no signs of them. The holes are usually several feet 
in length, but are near the surface of the ground in their 
whole extent. In one instance the burrow, after extending 
