154 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



• 



(1902a) has made the matter quite clear in the published results of 

 his study of his large series of specimens from the Cape region. 

 Mr. Adriaan van Eossem (1915) has thrown considerable light oh 

 the subject in his excellent paper on birds collected near Los Coro- 

 nados Islands. 



Nesting. — ^The first account we have of the breeding habits of 

 Craveri's murrelet was published by Dr. Thomas H. Streets (1877). 

 He found it breeding in Isla Eaza, in the Gulf of California, in 

 April, 1875. He writes,: 



It was breeding In holes In the rocks, amid the Innumerable gathering of Larus 

 heermanni, already noticed. Eggs two, taken from a crevice of a rock at arm's 

 length. These eggs resemble those of the tern, though rather elliptical ovoid in 

 shape. They differ from each other decidedly in the ground color as well as 

 in the markings. The darkest one is brownish drab, with nearly half of the 

 surface (on the larger end) heavily and confluently blotched with reddish 

 brown and dark brown, with a few neutral-tint shell markings interspersed. 

 The rest of the egg Is sparsely sprinkled with smaller and more distinct mark- 

 ings of the same color. The ground of the other egg is clay colored, or very 

 pale stone gray, with markings of the same colors as before, but less heavy, 

 more distinct, and smaller. There is the same aggregation of spots about the 

 larger end, but not so fully carried out, and the rest of the surface is more 

 thickly and uniformly flecked than the same portion Is on the other egg. The 

 darker egg measured 2.95 by 1.40 ; the other 1.95 by 1.35. 



Col. John E. Thayer (1909) published a letter from Mr. Wiknot 

 W. Brown, jr., giving an interesting account of the nesting and other 

 habits of this species, from which I quote, as follows : 



The object of the expedition to the Islands was to make a search for the 

 eggs of Brachyramphus craveri, the Craveri murrelet. I am pleased to write 

 you that I took over 40 eggs of this species on a rock that lies about 2 miles 

 from San Jose Island. I also took a series of 35 skins. We found the mur- 

 relets nesting in the crevices among the rocks of the bluff. The nest In all in- 

 stances was a slight depression in the earth at the end of the crevice and gen- 

 erally contained two eggs, but some nests only contained one. The young take 

 to the sea two days after being hatched. Twenty-two days Is the period of in- 

 cubation. The males help in the act of incubation, many males being taken on 

 the eggs in the day time. 



Behavior.— In the early morning hours, particularly abouf an hour before 

 dawn, there was much activity among the murrelets, they at this time being 

 seen In pairs chasing each other, and making much noise among the rocks. 

 Our tent was at the foot of the bluff and it was Impossible to sleep, the mur- 

 relets made so much noise; for when they fly there Is a loud whirring sound. 

 Toward the end of our stay they learned that the walls of our tent were soft 

 and seemed to take delight In butting into It In their amorous frolics. One 

 pair in the excitemeht must have hit Its head onward, for they dropped to the 

 ground with a thud and fluttered together under the side of the tent into my 

 bed, where I was trying to sleep. I caught them by throwing my blanket over 

 them. This Is the first collecting I have ever done In bed. They proved to be 

 male and female. In the daytime I did not observe any In the waters around 

 the island. They seem to feed far out to sea, for with the exception of the set- 

 ting birds In the crevices, I did not see any in the vicinity of the Islands In the 



