Page:Condor21(2).djvu/14

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60 THE CONDOR Vol. XXI a pale bluish?green sparingly marked with dark brown spots (some of which are smeared) and with small lavender markings principally at the larger ends. Another nest containing four young a few days old was found on March 18. This was in a tall rugged fir growing on the edge of a rocky bluff. The nest was situated eight feet from the trunk on a stout limb forty feet above the ground and was quite invisible from below. While hunting carefully over this hillside, stopping frequently for ten-minute intervals to watch for cross- bills, the very quiet female flew into a tree a few yards from me and after a wait of five minutes flew directly to the nest. The young were naked save for small patches of filamentous gray down on the head and back. The bill and gape were conspicuously yellow. One of these nestlings was taken and an ex- amination of the stomach showed a mass of softened fir seeds. With 'the rush of migrants in the latter part of April and May, my interest in crossbills rather flagged, although it was noted that most of the birds were paired and very quiet. On June 14, small flocks appeared in the fringe of pop- lars along the lake shore in front of my house. This piece of brush is under almost daily observation and no crossbills had ever been seen there before. They were feeding on green choke-cherries and tiny salmon-colored lepidop- terous larvae that crawled.on. the under sides of the poplar leaves. To reach these the birds hang head downward in the position they often assume when extracting fir seeds from the cones. All day long small flocks were flying up and down the road and alighting in the trees. It is likely that they were moving to new feeding grounds as none were seen the next morning or during the days following. Probably sixty birds were seen during the day. Of these at least forty were red males in the moult ired the rest were adult females and juvenals in the striped plumage. Okanagan Landing, British Columbia, January 21, 1919. NOTES ON THE NESTING OF TWO LITTLE-KNOWN SPECIES OF PETREL By GEORGE WILLETT W IIILE stationed on Laysan Island, Hawaiian Archipelago, during the winter of 1912-13, I was much interested in observing the nesting hab- its of two species of petrel, Ptcrodroma hypoleuca and Oceanodroma tristrami. As I have never seen a published description of the nest and eggs of either of these birds, the following notes may be worth recording. The White-breasted Petrel (Pterodroma hypoleuca) is an abundant nest- ing bird on Laysan, Lisianski and Midway islands, Pearl and Hermes Reef, and French Frigate Shoal. It is the most abundant nesting bird on the Hawaiian Bird Reservation, there being an Laysan Island alone, probably not less than 50,000 pairs. It was already present on the island at the time of our arrival, December 22, 1912, and from this time until January 7 following, the air at

night fairly swarmed with the birds. After this date, while still abundant, the 

numbcrs in the air decreased considerably as the birds began to incubate their eggs. Laying commenced the first week in January and was at its height about January 20.