gis THE ANCIENT MURRELET. 
General Range.—North Pacific and Bering Sea, south regularly to Sitka and 
Japan; casually (?) to Washington. 
Range in Washington.—Casual (7?) in winter on Puget Sound. 
Authorities.—Simorhynchus pusillus (?), Rhoads, Auk, Vol. X. Jan. 1893, 
p. 16, 17. 
WE humans are so impressed with the majesty of the ocean that we 
somehow expect its familiar denizens to keep pace with it. “Leviathan” is the 
symbol of marine aquatic life, and the Wandering Albatross with his 
fourteen-foot expanse of wing is considered to have arisen to the occasion in 
matching the ocean's might. It gives one a whimsical sense of incongruity, 
therefore, to see a mere dot of a bird extricate itself from the confusion of 
waters and go winging about its own Business. What impudence is this? or 
what oversight of old Neptune is it which permits this midget to cross un- 
charted leagues and to conduct itself in all ways like a grown-up? 
The authority for including this as a Washington bird appears to rest up- 
on the account of a wounded bird pursued but not taken by Mr. Edwards, 
senior, on Commencement Bay in the winter of 1888. We have also seen what 
must have been these birds in the same waters, where Marbled Murrelets 
notably abound. 
Nelson says: “Of all the water fowl of Bering Sea this trim little bird is 
the most abundant. * * As we lay at anchor close under the Big Diomede 
(in Bering Strait) the cliffs arose almost sheer for hundreds of feet. Gazing 
up toward one of these banks we could see the air filled with minute black 
specks, which seemed to be floating by in an endless stream. The roar from 
the rush of waves against the base of the cliffs was deadened by the strange 
humming chorus of faint cries from myriads of small throats, and as we 
landed, a glance upward showed the island standing out in bold, jagged relief 
against the sky, and surrounded by such inconceivable numbers of flying birds 
that it could only be likened to a vast bee-hive, with the swarm of bees hover- 
ing about it.” 
No. 369. 
ANCIENT MURRELET. 
A\WOLUL No. 2t.) Synthliboramphus antiquus ((Gmel.). 
Description.—Adults in breeding plumage: Head and neck sooty brown, 
blackening on crown, an invasion of white from underparts on sides of neck; a 
white stripe, made up of sharply-projecting white feathers, starts over each eye 
and, running obliquely backward and downward, nearly meets fellow on nape; 
touch of white on each eyelid; upperparts in general dark bluish ash, becoming 
sooty on edges and wing-tips; shoulders sharply streaked with white; underparts 
