928 . THE CALIFORNIA MURRE, — 
Bowles records an instance near Tacoma of a tunnel which was placed only 
two feet above the beach line. Incubation lasts a little over three weeks, and 
eggs are oftener hatched after the roth of July than before that date. The 
same burrows, if undisturbed, are used year after year. 
Baby Guillemots are covered from the hour of hatching with a thick 
black down. Their feet are pale reddish black, and their bills black with a 
tiny white tip. This plumage, one may readily see, is protective only in so 
far as it comports with shadow; the young birds, therefore, have an individual 
passion for obscurity. Brought to the light, the chick will not rest for the 
fraction of an instant, but is off instead in a tireless quest for a hidey-hole. 
One bird, in particular, which I was trying to photograph, nearly wore a hole 
thru my Job stratum. I had labored with the creature for perhaps half an 
hour, in vain. Finally, I put it in the bottom of a canvas canoe, divested of 
all hope of shelter. Not for one moment would that pickaninny pause except 
thru exhaustion, when its collapsed condition would have reflected, I fear, 
upon the artist, and might even have required explanation before the S. P. 
C. A. Upon recovery, instead of perking up and taking a momentary glance 
about, as a young gull would have done, it rose up and struck out for solitude, 
all with a single impulse which the waiting camera could not resolve. 
Finally the chick won out. I returned it to its rocky cradle, and we both 
heaved a sigh of relief. 
About the only way to find these little black rascals is to put your ear to 
the teeming rocks and listen for the subterranean peepings. They are adven- 
turesome explorers, and it is doubtful if their own mothers can always find 
them. 
No. 372. 
CALIFORNIA MURRE. 
A. O. U. No. 30a. Uria troile californica (Bryant). 
Synonyms.—CAiforNIA GUILLEMOT. CALIFORNIA Eoo-pirp. FaraLrone 
Brrp. 
Description —Adult in summer: Head and neck all around warm sooty 
brown, changing on upperparts to dark brownish slate, feathers of back and 
rump with some grayish brown edging; underparts from throat abruptly pure 
white, the sides shaded with dusky; wing-linings white, varied with dusky; 
secondaries narrowly tipped with white; a sulcus, or groove, in plumage behind 
eye; bill and feet black; irides brown, Adult in winter: Similar, but white of 
underparts extending to bill, and invading occiput till only a narrow central stripe 
of black remains, shading on head enough to outline a dusky stripe behind eye. 
Immature, first winter: Like winter adults, but white not invading occiput, and 
less extensive on side of head, with some dusky clouding in jugulum. Chicks are 
