Page:Condor10(3).djvu/5

 May, 1908 THE PRESENT STATE OF THE ORNIS OF GUADALOUPE ISLAND 103 of course responsible for the destruction of its flora and ornis. Brown and Mars- den estimated the numbers of the goat to be between six and eight thousand. It eats up every growing thing. All shrubs have long been exterminated and not a young tree, palm, oak, pine or cypress can be found in the island. The cat is also very numerous and undoubtedly has caused the extinction of two of the island's native birds--the towhee and the Guadaloupe wren--while the rock wren, junco, flicker and petrel, suffer much from its depredations. The house mouse (dl/ius muscuius) has become established in Guadaloupe and is exceedingly abundant, but it probably does but little harm, while it undoubtedly furnishes the main diet of the burrowing owl and sparrow hawk. Guadaloupe is at present uninhabited by man. LIST OF BIRDS SEEN OR TAKEN BY BROWN AND MARSDEN Di0media nigripes Aud. Seven specimens, adults of both sexes, were taken at sea near the island, on June 27 and 28. Puffinus 0pisth0melas Coues. Three specimens were taken in June. Mr. Brown says of this shearwater--' 'this species was abundant at night about the .per- pendicular cliffs east of our cabins, on the lower tableland, their cries resounding throughout the night. At day they frequented the waters off the extreme north- ern end of the island. From the high cliffs they could be constantly seen skim- ming over the ocean 1,000 feet below; often there were from forty to fifty in sight at one time. "Along the top of the bluffs we found the remains of three or four that had been killed by cats. The bird almost certainly breeds in the rocky crevices of the bluffs, but we could not prove this, as the perpendicular cliffs are inaccessible. "On our return trip from Guadaloupe shearwaters of this species were con- stantly in sight. Off the bar at San Quintin there were thousands upon thousands of them--I think I never before have seen so many birds at one time." Puffinus griseus (Gmel.). Two specimens were taken at sea near Guadaloupe in June. 0cean0dr0ma macr0dactyla Bryant. A series of a dozen adults and three young in the down was taken between the dates of May 28 and June 17, and one egg May 28. Mr. Brown's notes on this species are as follows: "This species was abundant at night about its nesting burrows on the pine ridge at the northern end of the island. Most of the burrows that we opened were empty, the breeding season be- ing about over; three, however, contained one young one each, and one, one egg. "The burrows were of various lengths and usually led between or under heavy fragments of rock, making it very difficult, in many cases impossible, to reach the end. We found no adult birds in the burrows. After the young are hatched the old birds appear to come in only at night to feed them. The one egg we secured was in a deserted burrow fifteen inches long, and lay in a somewhat enlarged de- pression at the end. It was white with a faint wreath of reddish brown specks at the larger end. "The mortality among these birds from the depredations of the cats that over- run the island is appalling--wings and feathers lie scattered in every direction around the burrows along the top of the pine ridge. The species, however, is still breeding in large numbers in Guadaloupe, and sometimes at night the air seemed to be fairly alive with petrels, their peculiar cries being heard on all sides." Phalacr0c0rax sp. "Two cormorants were several times seen off the southern