Among the Water-Fowl 



they did thus from the bay at Plymouth, Mass., 

 crossing Gurnet Beach, at which times they were 

 easily shot. During late fall and winter the so- 

 called " Common " Cormorant is also found spar- 

 ingly along the coast. 



It is late in the fall, about the first of November, 

 before the Murres and their allies stray as far from 

 their northern haunts as the Massachusetts coast, 

 beyond which not very many of them ordinarily are 

 supposed to go, except as they are driven by severe 

 northerly gales. They are hardy creatures, little 

 inclined to migrate from the latitude of their breed- 

 ing-grounds, save as the closing in ot the ice makes 

 it expedient. Most of them keep well out to sea, 

 especially frequenting the shoals and banks where 

 fish are abundant. If the season is mild and devoid 

 of severe gales, they keep well to the north. In 

 very wintry weather they coine in around the 

 mouths of harbours. One bitter December morn- 

 ing, with the mercury at zero, I watched a group 

 of Murres in Lynn harbour, off Nahant. There 

 was a channel-post that sloped considerably with 

 the tide, and these Murres would waddle up the 

 incline, sit awhile, then dive headlong, and climb 

 up again, seeming to greatly enjoy this sport. They 

 do not ordinarily come in large numbers into Cape 

 Cod bay, though off Manomet I occasionally see in 

 the 'Winter a line of Murres skim by. One calm, 

 misty day in December, as I lay at anchor there in 

 a dory off on the fishing-ground, watching the 

 Gulls and Gannets, a solitary Razor-billed Auk 

 suddenly emerged from the swell only a tew feet 

 away, and for some minutes bobbed around in the 



92 



