16 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES. 



our Old Man, but fail to locate his nest. We did not then 

 know the places — under rank, matted grass — which are mostly 

 preferred by the murrelet for nesting sites. 



We remained on this desolate, wind-swept island for two 

 weeks. After losing about a week's sleep, owing to their 

 squeaking, I, at least, felt like choking the whole lot. As if 

 not satisfied with the constant babble of their neighbors, the 

 murrelets took especial delight in alighting at the foot of our 

 A-shaped tent, toe-nailing it up to the ridgepole, resting there 

 a moment, and then sliding down the other side. This exer- 

 cise seemed to amuse them, and it certainly did us until the 

 novelty wore off. 



In a short time after the first birds arrive on their breeding 

 grounds, and before one has time to realize it, the entire sur- 

 face of certain favorite islands is literally alive with murrelets 

 and auklets, and both Leach's and fork-tailed petrels. When 

 one walks about at this time the murrelets and auklets become 

 frightened, running, flopping, and flying about in such numbers 

 that one has to be careful when he steps lest they be crushed 

 under foot. 



If it is windy, and it usually is, they are on the wing as soon 

 as disturbed ; but when a calm prevails they have to flop to the 

 side of a steep bank, from which they can jump and thereby 

 gain sufficient headway to keep on the wing. In their frantic 

 efforts to be off, they become bewildered and are as apt to fly 

 in one's face, or against the cliffs, as anywhere. 



We soon discovered that the murrelets were not especially 

 particular in the selection of a nesting site. An abandoned 

 burrow of Cassin's auklet, a deep crevice in the cliffs, under 

 large broken rocks which had fallen from the latter, or under 

 rank tussocks of grass, with which the higher portion of the 

 island was covered, would answer equally well. Under these 



