THE OOLOGIST 



35 



young lady the farthest from me, now 

 I'll leave it to chance. If she asks me 

 I will sign, otherwise not. 



No sooner had I made this agreement 

 with myself, than the lady wheeled 

 round, walked straight to me, held out 

 the pledge extended a pencil and said 

 "sign it." 



I did so and a minute afterwards 

 would have given anything to have 

 blotted out the act. Notwithstanding 

 all the misery, agony, and disgrace 

 caused by the demon rum. 



I did not understand its power then, 

 I do not comprehend it even now, but 

 so it was. 



Suffice to say that although quite a 

 number of years have passed since that 

 eventful evening, I have never tasted a 

 drop of liquor in any form, and I now 

 have a pleasant home of my own, tilled 

 with books, pictures and curiosities 

 galore. 



Although I have some friends and a 

 fair position I shall never be what I 

 might have been had not King Alcohol 

 and I joined forces. 



"Each loss has its compensaliou, 

 There is healing for every pain; 



But the bird with the broken pinion 

 Never soars so high again." 



Boys, profit by the lesson I have so 

 bitterly committed to memory and re- 

 member that should you seek forbidden 

 paths you may not be "saved by a col- 

 lection of eggs." 



God grant you may never need it! 



Why. 



The Brunnich's Murre as a Western 

 New Yorker. 



Brannich's Murre [Uria lomvia) is a 

 frequenter of the coasts and islands of 

 the North Atlantic and eastern Arctic 

 Oceans, moving southward in winter 

 along the Atlantic coast of America as 

 far as New Jersey, occasionally wan- 

 dering inland to the more easterly of 

 the Great Lakes. 



It seems to be only during the last 

 few years that this wanderer from the 

 North Atlantic has been observed in 

 Western New York, but within the 

 past few years, several individuals have 

 been taken on the larger water-ways of 

 this section. 



The writer has not observed in any 

 of the ornithological publications of the 

 day any mention of these occurrences, 

 and it appeared to me that a mere men. 

 tion of the visitations of this bird to 

 this section might be in order, so that 

 they might become matters of record. 



Mr. J. L. Davison of Lockport re- 

 ports that two specimens were taken in 

 Niagara River, Nov. 9, 1894, and that 

 on Dec. 19, 1896, five specimens were 

 taken in Niagara River. I am also rel- 

 iably informed that at least one speci- 

 men, and I am not certain but two, 

 were taken during the past fall or win- 

 ter on Lake Erie in the vicinity of Buf- 

 falo. I recently saw in the collection 

 of the Buffalo Society of Natural 

 Sciences, two mounted specimens of 

 Uria lomvia, which had apparently 

 been but lately placed there and it may 

 be that these are the specimens referred 

 to in the above information. 



An individual of this species was also 

 taken during 1897 (in the fall, I believe) 

 on Lake Ontario in the western part of 

 Monroe county, and came into the 

 hands of Mr. George F. Guelf of Brock- 

 port, in whose possession I believe the 

 specimen is now. 



Our little county of Orleans has its 

 record also. During the first half of 

 March, 1897, a specimen in winter 

 plumage was taken on the ice of Sandy 

 Creek near Murray, N. Y. (seven miles 

 inland from Lake Ontario) and brought 

 to Mr. F. A. Macomber of Murray for 

 mounting. The bird was in a famished, 

 exhausted condition, permitting itself 

 to be taken alive by hand. Its body 

 was considerably emaciated, and upon 

 examination its stomach was found to 

 be entirely empty. This bird is now in 



