--Successive expeditions to
Guadalupe Island during the past thirty years have returned with interesting repre-
sentations of the island's fauna, and simultaneously have amassed evidence of the
gradual decrease and final disappearance of many of the autochthonous bird species.
The curtain has already gone down on the caracara, flicker, towhee, wren, and kinglet,
and the results of the Ortolan expedition prepare us for the exit of the junco. Land
birds have not suffered alone, and it has become patent that the Guadalupe Petrel is
being, or has been, driven from the stage.
In 1922, the Tecate and, in 1925, the Ortolan visited Guadalupe, but the most care-
ful search of the island failed to reveal the presence of Guadalupe Petrels. It is true
that Mr. A. W. Anthony (Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., 4th Ser., xv, 1925, p. 287) in re-
porting upon the collections of birds and mammals obtained by the members of the
Tecate expedition, writes: "In former years there was a considerable colony [of
Oceanodroma macrodactyla] along the ridge in the pine growth at the north end of
the island ..... In July of the current year the same ridge was explored and but
little was seen to indicate a recent occupation of the nesting ground. A few burrows
were seen, but they seemed to be very old. In 1892 dozens of dead birds were seen,
where cats had tern away the breast, leaving wings and tail, enough to identify the
species. Half a dozen similar dried bodies were seen last July, but so few that we
were of the opinion that the colony was about finished."
None of the "dried bodies" was included in the collections, but the fragments of
a wing collected at that time are in the museum of the California Academy of Sciences,
and prove upon examination to belong to a bird of lesser dimensions than the
Guadalupe Petrel. It would appear, therefore, that the colony was perhaps more
nearly "finished" than Anthony believed, especially as no other specimens have been
taken of late years, even at sea.
Aside from Anthony's report, the most recent definite record of the occurrence
of the Guadalupe Petrel is from the pen of Dr. C. H. Townsend, who visited the island
on the Albatross in 1911. He reports (Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XLWL 1923, p. 6)
the taking of two specimens of Ocecnodroma macrodactyla, "Guadalupe Island, March
2-5."
I am indebted to Dr. Alexander Wetmore, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, and to Dr. Charles W. Richmond, of' the U.S. National Museum, for the
opportunity of examining one of these two examples. It is no. 305763, U.S. Nat.
Mus., male, collected on March 2, 1911, by P. I. Osborn and C. H. Townsend. It has
been compared carefully with the type of O. macrodactyla in the collection of the
California Academy of Sciences, and with material generously loaned by Mr. W. E.
Clyde Todd, Carnegie Museum, by Mr. S.C. Simms, Field Museum of Natural His-
tory, and by Mr. J. E. Thayer. In spite of the fact that a few of the central upper
tail-coverts and some of the rectrices are lacking, the bird is readily recognizable,
not as Oceaowdroma macrodactyla, but as Oceanodroma socorroensis, this individual
being one having indications of white on the lateral upper tail-coverts. I have not
had an opportunity to examine the second specimen (presumably in the collection
of the American Museum of Natural History), taken on March 5; but I see no reason
for believing that it differs specifically from the other.
After the above paragraphs were written, a letter was received from Dr. Robert
Cushman Murphy, of the American Museum of Natural History, in which he states
that he can "find no trace of an alleged specimen of Ocecnodomc macrodactyla,
collected by Dr. Townsend on Guadalupe Island in 1911." With regard to other
examples of the species in the American Museum collection, Doctor Murphy says:
"All of our adult examples of macrodactyla are labeled Guadalupe Island and were
taken during only two different months--namely, March, 1897, and May, 1906. In
addition to these, however, there are a male and a female in nestling plumage,
collected by R. H. Beck in August, 1912. These appear to be true macrodactyl ..... "
The identification of these nestlings is doubtless correct; nevertheless, August seems
rather late for young of this species to be still down-clad.
It would seem, therefore, that the disappearance of this species, presaged by
earlier visitors, and its imminence stressed by Thayer and Bangs (CONIX)R, X, 1908, p.
103), has become an accomplished fact during the last twenty years.--M. E. MCLELLAN
DAVID,SON, Californi Academy of Sciences, Sn Fraclsco, September 17, 19œ8.