LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 59 



Mr. William C. Tait (1887) says: 



The shearwaters are very useful to the Portuguese fishermen, as they Indi- 

 cate by their presence the neighborhood of the sardine shoals, and also con- 

 tribute to the general stewpot. They are caught by trailing after the boat, 

 along the surface of the sea, a line baited with a sardine. It Is usual to skin 

 these birds before adding them to the pot, and the fishermen say they are fat, 

 and consider them a great delicacy. P. major is said to be better eating than 

 P. kuhli, as it is fatter and tenderer. They generally keep well out to sea, and 

 approach nearer the coast during rainy weather with southerly winds. 



Fail. — The sojourn of this shearwater on our coasts is what we 

 might expect of a species which breeds in the northern hemisphere 

 and helps to indicate that our birds are identical with those of the 

 Azores and the Canary Islands. I can not find that there are any 

 spring or early summer records, as there are for both the greater 

 and the sooty shearwaters. They seem to arrive on our coasts early 

 in August and spend the next three months with us, mainly between 

 Cape Cod and Long Island Sound. Most of them disappear about 

 the end of October. While here they associate freely with the other 

 two species, named above, but are never so abundant. They usually 

 stay well offshore, but on one occasion, September 5, 1909, I saw 

 several and shot two, in company with a large flock of sooty shear- 

 waters, well inside the harbor at Chatham, Massachusetts. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Breeding range. — The American subspecies, horealis, breeds in the 

 Azores, Madeira, Salvage, and Canary Islands. Other subspecies of 

 Oalonectris kuhlii breed in the Mediterranean Sea and the Cape 

 Verde Islands. 



Range. — Atlantic Ocean. South to at least 36° south. West to the 

 coast of Brazil (off Bahia) and North America (from Newfoundland 

 to North Carolina). 



Migrations.- — ^Arrives on its breeding grounds late in February or 

 early in March and leaves them late in October or early in November. 

 Dates of occurrence on American coast: Massachusetts, Cape Cod, 

 August 2 to November 1; Bhode Island, August 15 to October 26;^ 

 New York, Long Island, August 6 to November 29 ; North Carolina, 

 September 3 to December. 



Casual records. — Accidental in England (Sussex, March 14, 1914). 



Egg dates. — Azores, Canary, and Madeira Islands. Sixty-six rec- 

 ords, May 28 to June 23. 



Since the above was written Mr. Eobert Cushman Murphy (1922) 

 has shown that the Mediterranean shearwater, Oalonectris kuklii 

 kuhlii, should be added to our list, as he has examined a number of 



