THE BRUNNICH MURRE. 639 
No. 320. 
BRUNNICH MURRE. 
A. O. U. No. 31. Uria lomvia (Linn.). 
Description.—Adult in summer: Upper parts sooty black, the secondaries 
narrowly tipped with white; chin, throat, fore-neck, and sides of head and neck 
snuffy brown; remaining under parts pure white; bill black, the “‘basal portion of 
cutting edge of upper mandible thickened and conspicuously light-colored.” 
Adult in winter and immature: Similar, but entire under parts, including chin, 
throat, fore-neck, and sides of head and neck, white. Length 16.50 (41.9) ; wing 
8.25 (209.6) ; tail 1.85 (47.); bill 1.45 (36.8) ; depth at angle .55 (14.); tarsus 
1.40 (35.6). 
Recognition Marks.—Duck size; black above, white below; small wings and 
tail; upright posture on land or water; rapid flight. 
Nesting.—Does not breed in Ohio. “Nests in communities, side by side 
on the bare ledges of rocky cliffs.” Eggs, one, subpyriform, varying from dull 
white or buffy to bluish, bluish-green and emerald-green, strikingly spotted, 
blotched and scrawled with deep chocolate, and obscurely with lilac. Av. size, 
3.15 x 2.00 (80. x 50.8). 
General Range.—Coasts and islands of the North Atlantic and eastern 
Arctic Oceans; south to the lakes of northern New York and the coast of new 
Jersey. Breeding from the Gulf of St. Lawrence northward. 
Range in Ohio.— Accidental in considerable numbers during December, 1896. 
THOSE of us who experience poignant regret upon hearing the tales of 
Wild Pigeons which “darkened the sun’-—thinking that we were perhaps 
born a generation too late—would probably have our longing for the “tu- 
multuous rushing of myriad wings” thoroughly satisfied could we visit the 
breeding haunts of the Guillemots in Spitzbergen or off the coast of Alaska. 
Sober observers tell us that in some places during the breeding season, the 
roar of a Guillemot rookery will drown the sound of the thundering sea in 
time of storm; and a gentleman who once visited St. George Island, one of 
the Pribylov group, affirmed that the flying males of this species at certain 
hours of the day “form a dark girdle of birds more than a quarter of a mile 
broad and thirty miles long, whirling round and round the island.” 
In the winter of ‘96-7 a driving storm from the Labrador coast caught 
up a considerable number of these multitudinous sea-fowl and swept them 
far inland. When the storm had spent its fury the Murres were found pro- 
miscuously stranded in the lakes and water-ways, or wandering about dazed 
and helpless in the fields of Ohio, Indiana, and neighboring states. Many 
specimens were taken by the hand and others shot at scattered localities; and 
the village oracles were often sorely put to it to tell what this strange fowl 
might be. The first published record! for Ohio was of the one taken by Rev. 
1 Bulletin No. 13, Wilson Ornithologicai Chapter, p. 16. 
