THE OOLOGIST. 



11 



like material, about five inches high 

 outside. The inside was 3 1-2 to 4 

 inches deep and 8 or 9 inches across 

 top. 



There were fresh eggs, incubated 

 eggs, eggs that were just hatched, 

 some nests of all young, some young 

 half-grown, some nearly ready to look 

 out for themselves — all Cormorants. 

 Some of the sets were of four eggs, 

 some of five eggs and one set I got of 

 six eggs, two of which were somewhat 

 incubated. Some of the sets con- 

 tained runts and others had abnor- 

 mally large ones. After tiring of 

 looking around we got to work gath- 

 ering. I placed my egg case in a fav- 

 orable locality (the egg case was a 

 regular shipping case for shipping 

 hen's eggs), and started in. I began 

 filling and left a blank space in the 

 fillers between each set, and only took 

 such sets that I knew could be 

 blown. I was careful enough to gath- 

 er in all the sets with runts and ab- 

 normally large eggs first. It took me 

 just about one-half hour to fill my 

 case of 360 eggs, less the blank spaces. 

 As soon as the others were ready we 

 signalled the boatman to come in 

 with the boat. We had the cases 

 nailed up and down on the rocks 

 ready for him when he got the boat 

 ing where we could reach it. We held 

 it as when landing while the others 

 loaded everything on board. When 

 all was ready, the boatman and his 

 helper at the oars, we watched our 

 chance and as a heavy swell was re- 

 ceding, we went out with it and before 

 another one came we were out of dan- 

 ger of the rocks. We made straight 

 for the bluff on the main land again, 

 and getting on leeward side of same, 

 we made a landing and Young Graham 

 and myself got out and made our way 

 up to the top of the bluff and to the 

 other side towards the ocean. On the 

 shelves overlooking we found a num- 

 ber of sets of eggs of Farrallone Cor- 



morant. The nest of this bird is sim- 

 ilar but larger and the eggs are larger 

 and usually more oblong than those 

 of Brandts. These sets we marked 

 and placed in a small hand basket. 

 After leaving the bluff we followed the 

 top of the ridge of sand hills, then 

 made our way down to the edge of the 

 bay and followed the beach around 

 the bay until we reached a point op- 

 posite the landing, where we waited 

 until the boat came up to ferry us 

 across. On reaching the landing we 

 carried our baskets, etc. up to the 

 store and left them until we passed 

 on our way home. We paid the boat- 

 man and went to camp where Mr. 

 Lewis had dinner nearly ready, as 

 it was now about 1 o'clock. After 

 dinner we packed our belongings into 

 the wagon and, started for home, and 

 as we passed the store, we picked up 

 our eggs and bid everybody good bye. 



We made a quick trip home, only 

 stopping once about one-half the way 

 to water our horse, and while wait- 

 ing there a couple of ladies drove by 

 in a buggy, and seeing the egg cases, 

 stopped and asked the price of eggs, 

 thinking we were peddling hen fruit, 

 of course. Mr. Lewis had to explain 

 that they were not the kind of eggs 

 that they would want, so they drove 

 on, with a puzzled expression on their 

 faces, which seemed to say, they could 

 not see what anyone would want with 

 sea bird's eggs. 



I had looked forward to this trip 

 for Cormorant eggs for some time 

 and devised a blower to blow them 

 that would lessen the work of blowing. 

 It was made thus: I first took an 

 extra blow pipe and cut off about 2 

 1-2 inches of the large end, then I 

 took a coupling from a piece of gar- 

 den hose, had a flat piece of brass 

 soldered to the same, then punched 

 a round hole in the center of same 

 inserted the blowpipe through •. this 

 a rubber washer in the coupling part 



