Page:Condor12(6).djvu/6

 184 THE CONDOR VoL. XlI to drink that we concluded that it was the fountain for all the woodland folk. And in their number we included a beautiful deer whose fresh track we found not far away. On the floor of the woods an occasional red cactus, a blue tradeseantia, or a single pink phlox made a bright spot of color. When we were thinking that we had this most remote mesa top with its wild- wood friends all to ourselves we were surprized by a fresh horse track, a shod track; and then something white thru the trees made us raise the field gtass--a white rooster on the fence of an adobe! Of course, We might have expected it, for like all the rest of the country the mesa had been sheept. Even now, once disillusioned, we caught the suggestion of sheep bells in the air. On the way down, too, we found old sheep camps and a salt log. It brought the same surprize we felt every- where in New Mexico, for while to us the country was new, in very fact this land of poco tiempo is an old, old land. But after all, what did it matter to us, for on the Mesa del Agua de la Yegua we had come back to the yellow pines! NOTES FROM LOS ORONADOS ISLANDS By ALleRE1) B. HOWJEI,L WITH TWO PHOTOS ITH the exception of four days, I was at Los Coronados Islands, Baja Cali- fornia, Mexico, from May 22 until July 15 of this year, and during this time I Inade a special study of the Xantus Murrelet (]ractyramphus hypoleucus), which species is found upon these islaHds breeding in limited num- bers. Altho in former years they were known to breed on Santa Barbara Island, Los Coronados is now believed to be the northernmost place where they make their home. Surprizingly little is really known regarding the habits of this species. and it is not known with any degree of certainty just how far south their range extends. Froin my observations, it seems to be beyond dout that these birds nest twice during the year, once towards the last of March, as has been proved time and again, and once more during the middle of June; for I found fully as many of their eggs at this latter date as did Mr. P. I. Osburn earlier in the season. Mr. Osburn has done considerable collecting here within the last few years, and spent four days with me during June. I have even taken half-incubated eggs from under the sit- ting bird as late as July 11, and it seems hardly likely that one nesting could strag- gle along continuously from March until July. And besides, no ornithologist has ever taken eggs of this species in May, as far as I can find out, and there are plenty of them who have visited the islands in that month in order to collect eggs of the other kinds of birds that are found nesting here. A point that has puzzled me is the question as to what becomes of the young murrelets after they are hatcht. I greatly dislike the practice of advancing theo- ries in order to try and prove scientific problems, but nevertheless I am now tempt- ed to try and reach some conclusion by the process of elimination. The nests which I kept under careful observation numbered five. When discovered, the con- tents of these nests were in every stage of progress from eggs half-incubated, to young that were barely dry. In every case did I find the nests deserted when the latter were at the uniform age of four days. The obvious explanation to this would