66 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA.. 



Breeding Notes. — Breeds on the Magdalen islands in the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence and on many of the islands off the Labrador 

 coast. It also breeds on the Alaskan coast. I have a series of 

 eggs taken on Sannak island, Alaska, June 30th, 1894. {Raine.) 

 I never saw this bird until the summer of 1897, when I found a 

 few pairs breeding on Bryon island, the northernmost of the 

 Magdalen islands. Here I found three nests; no doubt there were 

 many more, but as the bird is nocturnal in many of its habits the 

 nest is not easy to find. On the 24th June, a beautiful day, hear- 

 ing that this bird was to be met with on the island, I walked 

 toward the east point, and after looking about for some time at 

 length found a burrow under a stunted spruce bush about fifty 

 feet from the edge of the cliff. I detected the birds by the musky 

 odour in the neighbourhood of the bush. This burrow extended 

 horizontally about two feet under the tree. Atter digging down 

 I came to the nest — a mass of withered grass and bits of bark 

 and wood — in which was one egg, incubation just commencing. 

 The bird was on the nest, and when handled ejected an oily fluid, 

 very rank smelling. After measuring and identifying the bird I 

 let it go. The other two nests I found, were of the same charac- 

 ter and under the same conditions, and some distance from the 

 edge of the cliff. {Rev. C.J. Young.) Found breeding abundantly 

 on Seal island, Yarmouth co., N.S. The soft vegetable soil of the 

 wooded portions of the island is completely honeycombed with the 

 nesting burrows of the petrels. These burrows run in among the 

 rootlets of the trees some two or three feet, the one egg being 

 deposited in the bare mould at the end. Only the strong musky 

 odour of the birds attests their presence during the day, as not 

 one will be seen. But at night the sitting birds sally forth and 

 their mates who have been foraging far out at sea during the day 

 return. {H. F. Tufts?) Breeding in immense numbers on Lazaria 

 island, Sitka, Alaska. {Grinnell.) 



XXXVIL OCEANITES Keyserling & Blasius. 1840. 



109. Wilson Petrel. 



Oceanites oceanicus (Kuhl) Light. 1854. 



Traced as far north as Resolution island on our outward voy- 

 age; on the homeward, first seen aboiit one hundred miles south 

 of Cape Farewell. {Kumelin.) Common and said to breed on 



