1S4 
THE CONDOR 
VOL. XII 
to drink that we concluded that it was the fountain for all the woodland folk. And 
in their number we included a beautiful deer whose fresh track we found not far 
away. On the floor of the woods an occasional red cactus, a blue tradescantia, or 
a single pink phlox made a bright spot of color. 
When we were thinking that we had this most remote mesa top with its wild- 
wood friends all to ourselves we were surprized by a fresh horse track, a shod track; 
and then something white thru the trees made us raise the field glass — a white 
rooster on the fence of an adobe! Of course, we might have expected it, for like 
all the rest of the country the mesa had been sheept. Even now, once disillusioned, 
we caught the suggestion of sheep bells in the air. On the way down, too, we 
found old sheep camps and a salt log. It brought the same surprize we felt every- 
where in New Mexico, for while to us the country was new, in very fact this land 
of poco tiempo is an old, old land. But after all, what did it matter to us, for on the 
Mesa del Agua de la Yegua we had come back to the yellow pines! 
NOTEvS FROM LOS CORONADOS ISLANDS 
By ALFRED B. HOWELL 
WITH TWO PHOTOS 
W ITH the exception of four days, I was at Los Coronados Islands, Baja Cali- 
fornia, Mexico, from May 22 until July 1,5 of this year, and during this 
time I made a special study of the Xantus Murrelet ( Brac/iyramphas 
hypoleucus) , which species is found upon these islands breeding in limited num- 
bers. Altho in former years they were known to breed on Santa Barbara Island, 
Los Coronados is now believed to be the northernmost place where they make their 
home. Surprizingly little is really known regarding the habits of this species, and 
it is not known with any degree of certainty just how far south their 
range extends. 
From my observations, it seems to be beyond dout that these birds nest twice 
during the year, once towards the last of March, as has been proved time and 
again, and once more during the middle of June; for I found fully as many of their 
eggs at this latter date as did Mr. P. I. Osburn earlier in the season. Mr. Osburn 
has done considerable collecting here within the last few years, and spent four days 
with me during June. I have even taken half-incubated eggs from under the sit- 
ting bird as late as July 11, and it seems hardly likely that one nesting could strag- 
gle along continuously from March until July. And besides, no ornithologist has 
ever taken eggs of this species in May, as far as I can find out, and there are plenty 
of them who have visited the islands in that month in order to collect eggs of the 
other kinds of birds that are found nesting here. 
A point that has puzzled me is the question as to what becomes of the young 
murrelets after they are hatcht. I greatly dislike the practice of advancing theo- 
ries in order to try and prove scientific problems, but nevertheless I am now tempt- 
ed to try and reach some conclusion by the process of elimination. The nests 
which I kept under careful observation numbered five. When discovered, the con- 
tents of these nests were in even- stage of progress from eggs half-incubated, to 
young that were barely dry. In every case did I find the nests deserted when the 
latter were at the uniform age of four days. The obvious explanation to this would 
