Sept., ?9o7 SOME EXPERIENCES OF A COLLECTOR IN ALASKA ?35 where the ice was so thick that we couldn't get thru at all, and I almost froze be- fore we got out. There were lots of cormorants sitting on the ice which reminded me very much of that plate of the Pelagic Cormorant in Bailey's "Hand-Book." Marbled and Kittlitz Murrelets are common here but we can not find their breeding ground, and judging from birds we got they have either bred some time ago or are just going too. My Duck Hawks are great pets and are growing rapidly. They come into the tent and beg for bodies now, and they have a tremendous appetite. One gained two ounces a day for four days, and is doing better now. July 8.--We went up to the island on the 5th. Glaucous-winged Gulls Pigeon Guillemots, and Pelagic Cormorants were breeding on the island. The Muir Glacier has retreated on account of an earthquake four or five years ago until the face of it is about twice its former size. The discharge of ice is at least twice as great and the Marble Islands are right in front of the glacier so that they have ice floating thickly about them all the time. This change in temperature has evidently had a noticeable effect on the nesting of the birds on the islands. The cold has evidently driven them elsewhere as we found lots of signs that showed that the birds had formerly bred there abundantly; the Indians haven't extermin- ated them because they can't get there on account of the floating ice. A few Tufted and Horned Puffins were nesting in crevices in the rocks. I thought that I had got the "Old Boy" himself when I shot one of those Horned Puffins and I was sure of it when it grabbed hold of me with that "tin-shears" beak. We saw a pair of Parasitic Jaegers chasing a Duck Hawk about the islands. Several species of land birds were seen. Townsend Sparrows breed as also do Alaska Hermit Thrushes. Saw also Savanna Sparrow, Least Sandpiper and Barn Swallow. The Pelagic Cormorants were just beginning to lay, as I saw four nests with one egg in each. They make a particularly groaning sound when on the nest that sounds like some one moaning in pain. We could hear it quite a ways out before we landed and couldn't imagine what it was. I took in three adult Pelagic Cormorants as they were in fine breeding plumage. They were pretty tough to put up but not nearly so bad as the Horned Puffins. I got five Kittlitz Murrelets on the way, so I haven't been idle since I got back. We will probably spend ten days or so on the other side of the bay and then go out on the outside of Chichagof near Cross Sound. I suppose that will be about the end of my collecting as I expect to leave Juneau for Stanford about August 10. CATALOG OF BIRDS COLLECTED BY W. W. BROWN, JR., IN MIDDLE LOWER CALIFORNIA By JOHN I?. THAYER and OUTRAM BANGS ROM the autumn of 1906 until the spring of 1907 Mr. W. W. Brown, Jr., was engaged in collecting in Lower California in the interests of the Thayer Museum at Lancaster, Massachusetts. During this period his headquarters were at San Quintin, from which place he made excursions into the surrounding country.
