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THE OREGON 
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NATURALIST. 
Mor: 2. 
PoRTLAND, OREGON, OcTosER, 1895. 
No. 10 
THE MURRES ON THE 
FARRALONES. 
How many people know that for three 
months every summer hen’s eggs in the 
markets of San Francisco have to take a 
back seat, giving precedence to the che- 
aper larger and handsomer eggs of the mur- 
re or guillemot, a sea bird which breeds in 
countless thousands upon the Farralone 
islands. A new and singular industry has 
been developed in the gathering of these 
eggs for the market by Italian and Greek 
fishermen, who peril their lives in frail 
fishing boats and in scaling the rocky isl- 
ets for the eggs of the murre. 
Three ciusters of rocky islands of volcanic 
origin, thirty miles from San Francisco, in 
the Pacific ocean, for.n the Farallones, So- 
uth Farallone being the largest and the 
only one inhabited. 
They are difficult of access, small fish- 
ing boats or an occasional out-going tug 
being the only means of transit. 
South Faralloneis about a mile in length, 
and half a mile wide, everywhere cut up 
by jagged bridges, precipitous bluffs, 
pinnacles ‘and rocky points, the highest, 
where the lighthous2 is situated, being 340 
feet above the sea. 
The whole island may be said to be a 
veritable city of birds, covering their eggs 
in dense colonies, swimming and diving 
or wheeling by thousands through the air 
with shrill, incessant cries. 
Besides the murre, which lays the mar- 
ketable eggs, tufted puffins, western gulls, 
three species of cormorants, cassin’s auk- 
let the ashy petrel and the pigeon guille- 
mot breed in large numbers. 
The eggs sell readily at twenty cents a 
dozen in the markets, and that they are 
considered valuable as a food supply is evi- 
denced by the fact that one hundred and 
sixty thousand dozen are consumed an- 
nually. 
In spite of this enormous product the 
birds seem to be almost as prolific as ev- 
er, although near the close of a season’s 
collecting, “‘runt” eggs are found. 
Two men who were left on Sugar Loaf, 
an isolated rock 185 feet high, collected 
one hundred and eight thousand murre’s 
eggs in one season. 
The eggers usually consist of twelve to 
fiftz2n men, who inspect the great rooker- 
ies eariy in the season to see if the birds 
have begun laying. 
When the time is ready to begin work, 
a curious, but necessary performance takes 
piace. The whole island is gone over and 
all the murre’s eggs within reach are 
broken or thrown into the sea. 
This is to insure fresh eggs, for the egg- 
ers maintain that an egg that has been sat 
upon for a day is unfit for market. 
The egg collecting usually begins on 
Sugar Loaf, it being warmer there and 
more protected from prevailing winds. 
This rock is reached by a boat, which 
is left in charge of a man, while four or 
five of his companions scale the dangerous 
cliffs and collect the eggs about its precipi- 
tous sides. 
