200 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



the razor-billed auk in what was then the most southern outpost of its 

 breeding range, from which it has since retreated. As we ap- 

 proached the ledge, after a five-hours' sail from Grand Manan, sev- 

 eral eiders flew off and a cloud of herring gulls arose; and, never 

 having seen at that time any of the great breeding grounds of the 

 Alcidae, we were particularly interested to see a number of black 

 birds, with white breasts, standing on the rock, which we knew were 

 razor-billed auks. As they began flying off their numbers were in- 

 creased by others scrambling out from the rocks, until we estimated 

 that at least a hundred had left the island; when we landed not 

 one was to be found, but when we concealed ourselves among the 

 rocks they began flying back over the ledge singly or in small 

 flocks. We lost no time in hunting for their eggs, some of which 

 were in plain sight under the rocks; all of them were in sheltered 

 places and most of them were so well hidden in remote and dark 

 crevices under the large, loose rocks, that after two or three hours 

 of hard work, crawling into all sorts of holes and crevices, and 

 feeling for the eggs with a long-handled net, we succeeded in col- 

 lecting only 37 eggs. The eggs were laid on the bare rock, a single 

 egg in each case. This was an interesting experience for us at the 

 time, as every new experience is, but it is also worth mentioning 

 here as a record of conditions that have passed ; the breeding grounds 

 of our larger, wilder, and shyer birds are gradually becoming more 

 and more restricted through persecution and with the advance of 

 civilization. The razor-billed auk undoubtedly once bred still far- 

 ther south, or west, along the coast of Maine; Knight (1908) says 

 " there is a dimlj^^ verified statement that some 50 years ago or more 

 it nested as far south as the Cranberry Islands." It is said to have 

 bred near Grand Manan as recently as 1897, six years after my visit. 

 But the story of its decrease does not end here; it has been sadly 

 depleted in numbers much farther north. On Funk Island, off the 

 coast of Newfoundland, the razor-billed auk, together with several 

 other species of sea birds, once bred abundantly, but frequent and 

 persistent raids, at which the birds were killed for their feathers or 

 for bait and their eggs gathered in large numbers for food, finally 

 reduced these populous colonies to a pitiful remnant. Mr. William 

 Palmer (1890), who visited Funk Island in 1887, writes of it as 

 follows : 



It is easy to imagine what must liave been the abundance of these birds in 

 former years on this lonely, almost inaccessible ocean island. Great auks, 

 murres, razorbills, puffins, Arctic terns, gannets, and perhaps other species un- 

 doubtedly swarmed, each species having its own nesting ground, and never 

 molested except by an occasional visit from the now extinct Newfoundland red 

 man; but now, since the white fisherman began to plunder this, to them, food 

 and feather giving rock, how changed: To-day, but for the Arctic terns (which 



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