16 
BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
resting on the rocks while their parents are hunting for food. They 
are essentially " fowls of the air" and do not float about on the water 
like gulls. They dive by the force of their descent through the air 
and are out of sight only for a moment. They seem to use their webbed 
feet but little, as they do not rest on the surface as gulls do, but rise 
on the wing at once, when they come up, shaking off the spray as 
they fly. 
Sterna antillamm. Least Tern. 74. 
The Least Tern is of rather irregular occurrence. Mr. Shaw has 
one in his collection but reports it as uncommon at Hampton. In 
size it is hardly larger than a swallow, being but nine inches or less in 
length, and is therefore readily recognized, as all the other terns found 
here are more than a foot long. 
Sterna fuliginosa. Sooty Tern. 75. 
In Stearns's New England Bird Life, part II, p. 373, one may read, 
concerning this species, of " a flne adult male, taken at Newmarket, 
N. H., about Sept. 14, 1878, by Mr. D. C. Wiggin." Its normal 
range is tropical. 
Order TUBINARES. 
Family PROCELLARIID.E. 
Puffinus gravis. Greater Shearwater. 89. 
In the collection of birds belonging to Mr. William M. C. Phil- 
brick of Kittery, Me., who, by the way, has by far the largest, as well 
as the most systematically arranged, private collection of curios of all 
sorts, that I ever examined, I found a specimen of the Greater Shear- 
water that was taken near Portsmouth. 
Oceanodroma leucorhoa. Leach's Petrel. 106. 
Although petrels are strictly ])irds of open ocean, out of breeding 
season, I have evidence that they sometimes stray into unwonted 
places, in the skin of a Leach's Petrel killed in Oyster river, Novem- 
ber, 1898. The man who shot it said "it was swimming like a 
duck."' Mr. Shaw also has one in his collection which he procured at 
Hampton. Its presence here in the river was undoubtedly due to a 
storm a few days previous. This petrel may be recognized by its 
moderately forked tail. 
