176 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Casual records. — Accidental in northwestern Florida (Saint 



Marks). ' 



Egg dates.^-Jnan Fernandez Islands : One record, January 19. 



PELAGODROMA MARINA HYPOLEUCA (Moquin-Tandon). 

 NORTH ATLANTIC WHITE-FACED PETREL. 



HABITS. , 



This handsome and well marked little petrel enjoys a wide distri- 

 bution in the Atlantic and southern oceans. Its center of abundance 

 seems to be in Australian and New Zealand seas, where there are 

 several large breeding rookeries. ^ It also breeds on the Salvages 

 and on some of the Cape Verde, Azores, and Canary Islands in the 

 Atlantic Ocean. Its slim claim to a place on our list is based on a 

 single record of a straggler taken nearly 200 miles off the coast of 

 Massachusetts. It was added to our list by Mr. Ridgway (1885), 

 who published the following record : 



On the 2dJ of September, 1885, there waig captured on board the U. S. 

 Pish Commission steamer Aliatross (Capt. Z. L. Tanner, U. S. N., command- 

 ing), In latitude 40° 34' 18" N., 66° 09' W., a specimen of the white-faced 

 stormy petrel, Pelagodroma marina (Lath.). Mr. .lames E. Benedict, resident 

 naturalist of the Albatross, writes me that it was " taken on the ship late in 

 the evening of the 2d proximo," and that " it was in all probability attracted 

 by the light and fell on the deck, from which it seemed unable to rise." He adds 

 that no more of the same species were seen during the cruise, though petrels of 

 other kinds were numerous around the ship. 



Nesting. — Several interesting descriptions of breeding colonies of 

 this petrel have been published from which I have selected two. 

 Messrs. A. G. Campbell and A. H. E. Mattingley (1906) have given 

 us the following full account of an Australian colony, probably the 

 largest one known : 



Opposite the entrance of Port Phillip Bay, and some 4 miles in from the 

 actual Heads, lies a long* narrow strip of land known as Mud Island. The 

 name is somewhat of a misnomer, for the island consists mainly of sand. The 

 Island, which is perhaps 3 miles around, stands sentinel over the entrance 

 to the harbor of Melbourne, arresting the onrush of sand that would block the 

 opening, piling it up in the shallows and in the banks that form itSittanks. Mud 

 Island is unique in being one of the few spots on the south coast of Australia 

 where a species of storm-petrel (Pelagodroma marina) comes to breed. 

 Through the kindness of Mr. S. P. Townsend, A. O. U., and in company with 

 him and two f fiends, I was enabled to visit this rookery during the last week 

 of the old year. 



Passing over to some of the sand banks, we came across what was the real 

 object of our summer visit— the petrel rookery. Little burrows, juat large 

 enough to put one's hand in, each with a little heap of sand outside, were seen 

 among native spinach and saltbush, sometimes so thickly that every square 

 yard held one of them. Inserting the hand, we could reach to the end, where 

 a large chamber was found and a white-faced storm petrel sat quietly upon 



