BIRDS. 63 



the season aud repair to the cliffs, especially on the south aud east shores of Saint George's Island, 

 where, selecting some rocky shelf on the face of the cliff, safe from all enemies except man, they 

 deposit a single egg upon the bare rock and proceed at once with the incubation. They are very 

 devoted to their eggs, and our author states that they may even be pelted to death with stones 

 before they will desert their charge. The eggs are laid by the 1st to the 5th of June, and measure 

 about 2.90 by 1.90. The color is soiled white ; the shell is rather rough, and the egg is scarcely 

 more pointed at one end than the other. 



The natives of the islands obtain the eggs, which are said to be very palatable, by lowering 

 one of their number over the cliffs on a rope or raw-hide thong. " The chick comes out a perfect 

 puff-ball of white down, gaining its first plumage in about six weeks. It is a dull gray, black at 

 first, but by the end of the season it becomes like the parents in coloration, only much darker on 

 the back and scapularies." The writer saw young birds in both the stages just mentioned, in Sep- 

 tember and October, 1881. During September Fulmars were seen about the Straits, and in Octo- 

 ber they were extremely numerous off the harbors in the Aleutian Islands, and so fat that they 

 could scarcely rise from the water during calm weather ; whether they were of this or the forego- 

 ing species it is impossible to say. The Fulmars taken about Spitzbergen are said to have a red- 

 dish-orange suffusion in the white plumage during spring. 



PUPFINUS TENUiROSTRis (Temm.). Slender-billed Shearwater (Esk. Muk-lukting- 

 U-mS-uh). 



During the Telegraph Explorations Mr. Dall secured a skin of this bird from an Eskimo. 

 The bird was killed in Kotzebue Sound, and the natives called it the " Miiklok ting-myuk," or 

 Seal Bird, and said that it followed the seals in their migrations. This record extends the bird's 

 range through Bering Straits to the Arctic Circle. 



The writer saw no bird which could be referred to this species on the eastern side of Bering 

 Sea, but just northwest of the straits, the last of August, 1881, quite a number of dark-plumageJ 

 birds were seen, with many Eodgers's Fulmars, which appeared to differ in size and api^earance 

 from the latter-, and which I am inclined to think belonged to this species. Many young dark- 

 plumaged Fulmars were seen at the same time. 



Again, the last of September, as we api)roached the harbor of Unalaska, many of the same 

 birds were seen in the same company. 



As the single specimen secured by Dall is the only one taken north of the Aleutian chain, 

 the species mast be regarded as very rare there. It is reported from Sitka by Schlegel, and also 

 from Japan and the Kurile Islands. 



By a slip, my notes upon this bird in the Cruise of the Corwin were given under the name 

 of Prioeella tenuirostris (And.). 



In addition to the single specimen of this bird taken by Dall in Kotzebue Sound, one was 

 taken at Unalaska, August 31, 1828, by von Kittlitz, and a third specimen, from Sitka, is said to 

 be in the Leiden Museum (cf. Stejueger, Auk, July, 1884, p. 234). Another specimen has been 

 taken recently on Kadiak Island by Mr. W. J. Fisher. 



^STRELATA FisHERi Ridgw. Fisher's Petrel. 



This species was described from a specimen taken on Kadiak Island by Mr. Fisher. (See 

 Proc. U. S. National Museum, 1882, pp. 056-658.) Nothing distinctive is known of its habits. 



OCEANODROMA LETJCOEHOA (Vicill.). Lcach's Petrel. 



In May and October I found this petrel abundant in the passes through the Aleutian chain 

 and for some distance on each side of the islands, rarely, however, passing 100 miles to the north, 

 although being found everywhere on the North Pacific, even hundreds of miles offshore. They 

 are always more common, however, near land. 



Bischoff found them abundant near Sitka, and Dall found them breeding on the rocky islets 

 near Attn and on the highlands of Kyska and Amchitka, all near the western end of the Aleutian 



