BIRDS OF BERING SEA 229 



a decidedly thicker bill. Both forms are present in vast 

 multitudes about the rocky islands of Bering Sea, the 

 Pallas's murre being especially abundant and outnumber- 

 ing all other sea birds in the ratio of fully ten to one. 



Comparatively few birds were seen as we steamed into 

 a brisk head wind under a lowering leaden sky. Murres 

 whirred past in flocks every now and then, and occasion- 

 ally a Pacific fulmar followed in the ship's wake. The 

 fulmar is about as large as a fair-sized gull, but with longer 

 and more slender wings, which are held rigidly out- 

 stretched much of the time in flight. Although an ally of 

 the albatross, the fulmar has not the supreme command 

 of the air possessed by that bird, and every now and then 

 must resort to flapping its pinions. This species is peculiar 

 in having two phases of plumage without reference to sex 

 or season. In the dark phase the body is a deep, smoky- 

 gray above and below, while in the light phase the plu- 

 mage is similar to that of many adult gulls pure white 

 with a bluish-gray mantle over the back. Many that we 

 saw were in a mottled plumage, largely white but with 

 dark patches on their backs. 



At times a silent bird with slender, far-reaching pinions 

 would glide out of the mist, gyrating back and forth over 

 the crested waves without a tremor of its rigid wings. It 

 looked like a small albatross with dark, sooty-gray or 

 blackish plumage, and we made it out to be the slender- 

 billed shearwater. It is a creature of the boundless ocean, 

 as unimpeded in flight as the wind which sustains it. 



A flock of harlequin ducks flew past with rapid wing 

 strokes. From a distance they looked black against the 

 leaden sky, but as they came abreast of us the white bars 

 across the head were very conspicuous. When they were 

 gone there was nothing left to vary the monotony of gray 

 until two or three kittiwake gulls came sailing daintily 

 along. The kittiwakes are snowy white save for the 



