BIRDS OF BOGOSLOF 



3 2 9 



tation was beginning to appear on Bogoslof. 1 If not an 

 error, this report must have referred to very lowly forms, 

 for at the time of my first visit (1891) I particularly noted 

 the absence of vegetation. It is true that I examined only 

 the cliffs and the new spit on the west, and not the old 

 spit on the southeast where seeds of plants have had the 

 longest chance to grow. 



When the Harriman Expedition landed on the east spit 

 July 8, 1899, we were accompanied by one of our bota- 

 nists, Mr. F. V. Coville, who made it his special business 

 to search for plants. He found, besides an alga, only a 

 single specimen of a small 

 umbellifer and one or two 

 specimens of an inconspic- 

 uous beach plant. 



Birds. 



From early times Old 

 Bogoslof has been the re- 

 sort of countless multitudes 

 of seabirds, mainly murres 

 or l arries,' and the new 

 volcano had not yet cooled 

 when the vast hordes be- 

 gan to take possession. At 

 the time of my first visit 

 (August n, 1891) they 

 stood by thousands on pro- 

 jecting points and ledges, 

 wherever the rocks were 

 not too hot, and hundreds of their eggs, in every stage 

 from fresh to hatching, and young in various conditions of 

 early growth were observed. Whether or not they relied 

 on the warmth of the rocks to assist in incubation, and in 



1 Kotzebue, Entdeckungs-Reise, III, p. 166, 1821. 



FIG. 37. MURRES. 



