BIRD NOTES AFIELD 



in the world. Hunters are in the habit of saying that it dives 

 upon seeing the flash of a gun and thus escapes the shot. It 

 is distinguished among other things by the singular arrange- 

 ment of its feet for swimming. Instead of a web-foot, each 

 toe has a loose flap or lobe, with a slight webbing at the base 

 of the toes, by means of which the bird gets an ample pur- 

 chase upon the water in swimming. 



The nearest relatives of the grebes are the loons, two species 

 of which inhabit the waters of our bay during the winter 

 months. Their necks are larger and the whole build of the 

 bird is more massive, but they are wonderful swimmers and 

 divers. Their legs are placed so far to the rear that loons 

 are helpless creatures upon the land, barely able to crawl 

 along with their bodies flat upon the ground. 



In this same group of diving birds are several species which 

 nest along our coast, upon bleak, inhospitable bluffs, and upon 

 such naked rocks as the Farallones. What home could be 

 imagined more dreary for a baby bird, yet here where the 

 breakers are pounding and the keen winds ceaselessly blowing, 

 in some cranny of the rocks, the tufted puffin lays her solitary 

 egg and rears her lonely little chick. Upon the ledges over- 

 hanging the sea, the California murres congregate by thou- 

 sands and deposit their eggs wherever a spot sufficiently level 

 is found. These eggs are familiar to most of you, no doubt, as 

 the Farallon eggs, formerly sold in the markets of San Fran- 

 cisco. 



Before leaving the diving birds it may be well to emphasize 

 their division into three families — the grebes, the loons, and 

 the auks, murres and puffins. Among the most interesting 

 species, not already mentioned, are the rhinoceros auklet, with 



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