Page:Condor9(3).djvu/15

 May, 19o7 77 BIRDS COLLECTED BY W. W. BROWN, JR., ON CERROS, SAN BENITO AND NATIVIDAD ISLANDS IN THE SPRING OF 1906, WITH NOTES ON THE BIOTA OF THE ISLANDS By JOHN E. THAYER and OUTRAM BANGS HE following lists and notes, based ou birds collected on Cerros, San Benito and Natividad Islands off the northern coast of Lower California by W. W. Brown, Jr., in the spring of 1906, may add a little to our knowledge of the oruis of these barren, inaccessible islands. The field was in uo sense a new one, such good bird collectors as Streets, Belding and Anthony having worked it; but it was desirable to get more specimens of some of the species found there, especially the three small laud birds peculiar to the islands--7t:vomanes bew/cki/ cerroenst (Anthony) of Cerros, and ('podacus mc, q're,om' Anthony and assercuhs lralus sanclorunt (Ridg.) of San Benito. Most of the literature bearing ou the oruis of these islands is rather frag~ meutary consisting of brief descriptions of new forms, or short notes on the breed- ing or other habits of some of the birds. Belding, however, published (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. Vol. 5, pp. 530 to 532, 1882) a list of twenty species of birds seen or taken by himself during a stay of twelve days in April, on Cerros Island. Anthony's descriptions of new forms and accounts of the breeding of petrels and other birds are scattered, but appeared chiefly in the Auk. Iu the spring of 1906, W. W. Brown, Jr., visited these islands while on his way to Guadaloupe and made small collections of birds, nmmmals and reptiles. He sailed froin San Quentin, accompanied by Mr. H. W. Marsden as assistant, on the little schooner "La Fria" of ten tons burden ou March 25, reaching Cerros Island in twenty-four hours. Here he planned to stay a week and a vessel was to call for him at the end of that time, but for some reason never explained a month elapsed before the "Santa Barbara," fourteen tons burden, canle to take him off. This delay was serious as there were so few birds on Cerros that it was a waste of time staying there and it delayed his visit to Guadaloupe till much later in the season than he had platorod reaching there. During this month Mr. Brown and Mr. Marsden made a short trip to Nativi~ dad Island; they, however, found no small laud birds there. On April 24, Brown and Marsden accompanied by Ignacio Oroso, a Mexican hunter, sailed froin Cerros for Guadaloupe, but made a stop of two days at the San Benito Islands. In another paper we intend giving an account of Mr. Brown's experiences among the birds of Guadaloupe and here only list such species ,-rs he took on the three smaller islands that lie visited on his way thither. An aceomit of each island, taken froin Mr. Brown's notes, precedes the list of birds that tie sectired there. CERROS ISLAND "Cerros Island is nearly twenty-one miles long, north and south, and in width it varies from three miles near its northern end to nine miles near its southern end. The southern end of the island is twelve and one-half miles from the mainland of the Peninsula of Lower California. It is of volcanic origin, a mass of high, abrupt peaks, the highest being 3950 feet in altitude. The northern part of Cerros is com- paratively fertile, the crests and northern slopes of the mountains being covered by