THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 

 Vol. XXI. October, 1904. No. 4. 



A FORTNIGHT ON THE FARALLONES. 



BY MILTON S. RAY. 



A DUSKY group of naked, stony peaks on the horizon, set in a 

 summer sea against a cloud-strewn sky, was our first view of the 

 Farallon Islands, near noon on May 27, 1904. Charles A. Love, 

 Oluf J. Heinemann and the writer had left San Francisco at seven 

 o'clock in the morning on the trim little seventeen-ton gasoline 

 schooner ' Jennie Grifiin,' which makes bi-weekly trips. As we 

 neared the islands birds became more and more numerous ; bands 

 of cormorants, strung out in Indian file, passed us, and flocks of 

 murres dove or splattered over the water from the ship's side. 

 With a retinue of cackling gulls above us or trailing in our wake, 

 we entered, at half past one, the picturesque harbor, walled in by 

 towering cliffs, rocky arches and jagged islets, prosaically named 

 Fisherman's Bay. Amid the rising clouds of bird life, startled 

 by our whistle, we dropped anchor, and after a short row ashore 

 and a flat-car ride of half a mile, drawn by the famous island 

 mule,' Patti,' we arrived at Stone House, a comfortable two-story 

 structure of spotless white, of which we were given possession. 

 With all the eagerness that characterizes the naturalist in new 

 territory we partook of a hasty lunch and set forth to explore the 

 greatest of western bird rookeries. 



After the discovery of gold in 1849 the fast increasing com- 

 merce of the ' Bay City ' necessitated the installation of a light- 

 house on these islands, as they lie due off the harbor. The 



