AMONG THE WaTER-FOowWL 
they did thus from the bay at Plymouth, Mass., 
crossing Gurnet Beach, at which times they were 
easily shot. During lite fall and winter the so- 
called “Common” Cormorant is also found spar- 
ingly along the coast. 
It is late in the fall, about the first of November, 
before the Murres and their allies stray as far from 
their northern haunts as the Massachusetts coast, 
beyond which not very many of them ordinarily are 
supposed to go, except as they are driven by severe 
northerly gales. They are hardy creatures, little 
inclined to migrate from the latitude of their breed- 
ing-grounds, save as the closing in of the ice makes 
it expedient. Most of them keep well out to sea, 
especially frequenting the shoals and banks echeee 
fish are abundant. If the season is mild and devoid 
of severe gales, they keep well to the north. In 
very wintry weather they come in around the 
mouths of harbours. One bitter December morn- 
ing, with the mercury at zero, I watched a group 
of Murres in Lynn harbour, off Nahant. There 
was a channel-post that sloped considerably with 
the tide, and these Murres would waddle up the 
incline, sit awhile, then dive headlong, and climb 
up again, seeming to greatly enjoy this sport. They 
do not ordinarily come in large numbers into Cape 
Cod bay, though off Manomet I occasionally see in 
the winter a line of Murres skim by. One calm, 
misty day in December, as I lay at anchor there in 
a dory off on the fishing-ground, watching the 
Gulls and Gannets, a solitary Razor-billed Auk 
suddenly emerged from the swell only a few feet 
away, and for some minutes bobbed around in the 
QO2 
