AUDUBON SHEARWATER 
Two birds collected at the Galapagos 
This may be the most abundant bird in the immediate vicinity of the 
Galapagos Islands. Thousands were seen along with many other birds in a 
hydrographic front at the northwest end of Isabela. Huge "balls" of bait 
were present here and the shearwaters were walking on the water, quite like 
the storm petrels do, and then just walking under water and not coming up 
for as long as 20 or 30 seconds. This behavior was very common at this 
hydrographic front. Only one Audubon Shearwater was observed at any dis¬ 
tance from the Galapagos Islands. 
SOOTY SHEARWATER 
The three birds observed just west of the Galapagos Islands may be 
the first records of this species within the island waters. Sooty Shear¬ 
waters were seen in large numbers all along the southern half of Baja 
California, Mexico. 
phoewix/tahiti PETREL 
These large petrels were present in the northern part of the area and 
also in the southern part, but are absent from a wide area in the center. 
These two petrels are extremely difficult to distinguish in the field, and 
only very close observation could enable one to differentiate between them. 
Hone of either species was : positively identified. 
JUAN FERNANDEZ PETREL 
WHITE - KECKED PETREL 
P. externa 
There was a small number of these birds in the North Equatorial Current 
system, not nearly the number which was in these waters in August and Sep- 
uember 1967. One White-necked Petrel was positively identified on 23 
February (see drawing on at-sea daily log). All the rest were Juan Fer¬ 
nandez or only identifiable to the species level. 
STORM PETRELS 
This confusing group has stirred much discussion during the past and 
I shall add my bit to the confusion. The characteristics I used in de¬ 
termining species are as follows: First: Galapagos Storm Petrels follow 
the ship and are readily identified by their large white blaze; second: 
the dividing line on the rump was used to identify white-rumped Leachs at 
close range; third: Harcourt Storm Petrel was identified by its all-white 
rump (i-e., no dividing line), and squared off tail. However, I feel 
rather doubtful about some of the birds which I recorded as Harcourt 
Storm Petrel as I have recently seen some of Dick Crossin's specimens 
from the JORDAN cruise. They were in molt and the usual Leach charac¬ 
teristics were not very evident. , 
1 
During five days of collecting at 98 °W on the equator I collected 
22 Galapagos Storm Petrels and only seven Leach Storm Petrels. 
