VoL. VIII Papers on Philippine Birds I.--A Collecting Trip to Calayan and Fuga" BY RICHARD C. MCGREGOR N July e5, I0O3, I finished packing my provisions and collecting gear preparatory to a trip to the Batanes and Babuyanes, two groups of small islands situated north of the island of Luzon. The avian fauna of these islands was quite unknown at this time except for ten species which were observed by. John Whitehead, the English naturalist, during a short enforced stay on the small island of Fuga. Meager as was Whitehead's material it included a species (IYypsipeles fugensis Grant) not found outside of the Babuyanes; the genus is not known from any other part of the Philippine Archipelago but it has representative species in Japan, Formosa and the Loo Choo Islands. These facts led me to look forward with the greatest interest to collecting on these islands. The morning of July 26 was very nasty. The typhoon signal was flying on
. "?:?-' Wi?ather Bureau building and Manila Bay was so choppy as to render embarca-
' .?_'?1? the Coast Guard Cutter extremely unpleasant and somewhat dangerous. ?'* ?{?iil?r? on the run we were about to make, from Manila to Aparri, are always heav.i. ly loaded and it was noon before all was aboard and we headed for the mouth of Manila Bay. As we neared Corregidor, a snmll rocky island just within the mouth of the bay, the heavy seas caused our ship to pitch to an alarming de- gree and the necessary slowing of the engines lost all our headway. Fortunately the captain decided to stop at Mariveles until the sea abated. Five days we remained at anchor with wind blowing furiously and rain coming in frequent squalls. To remain on deck meant to be soaked, so the passengers hud- dled together in the saloon or in the little staterooms. This boat has accommo- dations for eight passengers in the staterooms, and four can rest with some comfort on the transoms of the cabin; on this trip we carried 24 first-class pas- sengers. But what is discomfort to the collector ! During the time we were at anchor off Mariveles we took the rarest bird of all our trip and I felt well repaid. A small petrel was driven aboard and captured. This was the first time that any species of the family had been taken in the Philippines. The bird was so badly damaged that even the authorities at the National Museum could not determine its species. On the e7th two small flocks of swifts (Uollocalia) flew across the bay in the rain. Two species of tern, one of them Xterna bergii, and a gull (Larus ridibundus) were seen in sinall numbers. Two white-bellied eagles (tialiaetus [eucozaster) cir- cled about the ship and several individuals of the eastern fish hawk (lrIaliastur intermedius) were continually in sight. Birds of the last species are numerous about the Manila shipping where they perform the duties that fall to the gulls along the California coast. In Japanese ports as well I have noticed great num- bers of hawks feeding on scraps thrown overboard from ships' galleys. When the typhoon had blown itself out we returned to Manila for more stores and then made a new start up the west coast of Luzon mid with fairly good weather. Off Lingayen Gulf and to the southward on August 2 I noted numbers of shearwaters but could not tell of what species never having killed any in these waters. ?uffinus leucomelas has been known from the islands for a long time; it a The birds obtained on this trip were fully reported in Bulletin of the Philippine Museum, No, 4.
