JOURNAL OF MAINK ORNITHOI.OGICAI, SOCIRTY. 73 



colony of curious sea birds, which we expected to find breeding 

 there. It was not long before we began to be surrounded by quick- 

 flying Razor-billed Auks, birds whose bodies are some sixteen or 

 seventeen inches in length, and whose wings, beating the air with 

 rapid strokes, carried them with great swiftness over and past our 

 boat. On the rocks above high water mark, we could discern many 

 of the Auks sitting solemnly on end and watching our approach 

 with some interest and alarm, for it is a fact that they very rarely 

 receive visitors, and dislike any association with human beings. 

 This is why they choose for their breeding grounds rocky islands so 

 far out in the ocean that sometimes a whole season will pass without 

 a day that will permit any boat to make a landing. 



I had seen along the Maine coast some ugly places to get on 

 shore, but I had never had experience with a situation which 

 seemed to promise danger and discomfort in like degree with this. 

 For more than a hundred yards between the dry boulders and the 

 water there were large broken rocks covered thickly with the most 

 greasy and slippery seaweed, so that, even if we could land from 

 the boat, it was likely to be very difficult to make our way to the 

 top of the island without considerable exertion. It was fortunate 

 for my purposes that the water was almost as smooth as in a pond, 

 with not a particle of swell from the ocean, one day in a hundred I 

 was told, for otherwise we should not have been able to leave the 

 boat. The careful skipper rowed the dory half around the island 

 before a little inlet was found to furnish some sort of a shelter from 

 the lapping waves, and here we clambered out of the boat. We 

 reached the dry rocks after ten minutes of patient progress, and 

 looked about us in rather a happy frame of mind, because w^e had 

 surmounted the obstacles, which seemed at one time to bar the way 

 to our desired goal. 



We now had full possession of the island, for the flocks of birds, 

 which had been occupying the rocks before our arrival, took a hasty 

 departure when we landed. Red granite blocks formed the island, 

 with not a vestige of any vegetation. Here the Razor-bills had 

 been laying their eggs and rearing their young in security, if not in 



