^"Ig^^^] ^''^'^ Fortnight on the Farallones. 43 I 



between piles of rocks where they could be seen not infrequently 

 from above. I also noticed a number of pairs nesting under the 

 wooden platform that overhangs the rocks at North Landing. It 

 is usually several days after laying the first egg before the bird 

 lays the second. 



Although more wary than most other island species, on several 

 occasions we caught sitting birds on the nest. In fact, firearms 

 are seldom necessary to secure specimens on the Farallones, and 

 then only a rifle should be used, for, according to the head light- 

 keeper, Mr. Cane, nothing frightens the birds on the island like 

 the report of a shotgun, and when it is discharged in a rookery 

 creates a panic. The cry of the guillemot is a peculiar feeble 

 hiss-like whistle, almost inaudible amid the roar of the mighty 

 breakers that come tearing up against the flat, low-lying shore 

 rocks where these birds congregate in numbers. 



4 . Uria troile californica. California Murre. 



The murre not only outnumbers all other species on the islands, 

 but all of them combined. On May 28 we found what the head 

 keeper said was the first egg of the season, and he also stated 

 that the birds commenced laying about ten days later than usual 

 this year. Later on eggs became more and more numerous, and 

 during the last week of our stay we noted them everywhere. 



The largest rookeries on the main island are in Great Murre 

 Cave and at Tower Point, on East End, on the rocky shelves and 

 terraces below Main Top Peak, and on the dizzy sides, from sea 

 to summit, of the Great Arch, the natural bridge par excellence, 

 on West End. The birds also breed abundantly all along the 

 ridge and in the numberless grottoes along the seashore, while the 

 surrounding islets are covered with them in countless thousands. 

 Great Murre Cave, which runs in from the ocean on Shubrick 

 Point, with its vast bird population, is a wonder to behold. All 

 ledges and projections, as well as the cave floor, were murre-cov- 

 ered, and on our approach the great colony became a scene of 

 animation, with a vast nodding of dusky heads and a ringing con- 

 cert of gurgling cries. The birds, at first in tens and then in 

 twenties, flew out, or by sprawling and flapping over the rocks and 



