At Sea, North Atlantic.
1909
August 1 [August 1, 1909]
(No 4)
  Besides the large light-colored Petrels just mentioned
I saw, this afternoon, three small dark-colored ones. Two
of these, flying together close to our bow, looked like 
Wilson's Petrels. The other was evidently decidedly smaller
and its flight seemed to me swifter & more erratic. I
suspect it was a Stormy Petrel.
  About 5 o'clock I was standing on the deck in front
of the bridge when three gull-like birds came directly
over me at a height of not more than 80 ft. Indeed I
could easily have shot one or two of them as they sailed
in circles on set wings, looking down at us. They appeared 
scarce larger than Wilson's Terns and not unlike them in
general shape & proportions but their tails were rounded or
perhaps [?] at the end and in one bird the central
pair of feathers projected about 2 inches beyond the others.
This bird was wholly of a dark sooty color looking in 
some lights as black as a male Purple Martin. The other
two were plain brown (hair brown I should say) above
and on the sides of the breast. Their throats and abdomens,
with a narrow central space up the breast, were very
light brown or perhaps brownish white. I had a splendid
view of them in a good light at this time. Soon afterward
they passed on over us and drifted back over the wake
of our ship where they were joined by four other brown-
backed, light-bellied birds, evidently of the same species. I
have no doubt whatever that they were Parasitic Jaegers, a species
I am glad to have seen again in life. The length and shape of the central tail feathers
in the sooty-colored bird was indeed, conclusive points
as to its identity & without doubt the other birds were all of the same species.
They were admirably proportioned,
clean cut, birds, smaller looking than I had expected, exquisitely easy &
graceful of flight, moving, indeed, with all the buoyancy &
absence of effort of the Bonaparte Gull, one of the best flyers