1894 
February 17 
Kittiwake 
Gulls 
Start for the West Indies. 
Morning clear, afternoon cloudy with south wind, 
the sun coming out again just before its setting. 
G. left me by the 10 A. M. train for Boston. At 
10.30 I drove to pier #47 and went aboard the "Madiana", a 
steamship of 3,050 tons register with a length of 344.8 
feet, 39.4 feet beam and 29.1 feet depth. She has a double 
bottom fore and aft and carries 400 tons of water ballast. 
Her maximum speed is fourteen knots but she ordinarily 
makes about twelve knots. She was advertised to sail at 
noon but it was nearly one o’clock when we finally got off 
and ploughed a lane through the floating ice which filled 
the river. 
There were a few Herring Gulls about but they were 
left behind after we passed Sandy Hook and their places were 
taken by some Kittiwakes, which followed us until about 
sunset, trailing along over the wake of the steamer and 
coming pp at times to within 20 yards or less. I identified 
them beyond a possibility of error by means of my glass. 
Ten was the greatest number which attended us at any one 
time. Although moving directly against a stiff head wind, 
they flapped their wings very little but scaled, apparently 
without effort or deflection from a level plane, hundreds 
of yards at a time, keeping close under our stern. Prof. 
Riley (of Washington) who watched them with me thought 
I 
