Vol. Xin Bendire, Notes on the Ancient Murrelet. 277 



189s 



circles about for a short time and then partakes of its meal. To do 

 this he hovers, remaining almost stationary for several minutes at the 

 time ; in the mean time the prey is raised well up to the beak with 

 both feet, and promptly devoured. When the Murrelets return to 

 the land at nightfall, the Falcon is there also to meet them, and 

 soon again secures his nightly repast." 



The eggs of the Ancient Murrelets are quite large considering 

 the size of the bird, while their odd and peculiar coloration gives 

 them a rather unique appearance, and I am unable to point out those 

 of any other North American species which they resemble at all 

 closely, and on account of the remoteness of their principal breed- 

 ing-grounds, they still remain quite rare in oological collections. 

 In shape they vary from elliptical ovate to elongate and cylindrical 

 ovate, the elongated ovates predominating. Their shell is fine- 

 grained, moderately strong, although rather thin, and it shows 

 little or no gloss. They are rather difficult to describe accurately, 

 their ground color being variable and of subtle tints not readily 

 expressed on paper, ranging from a bluish milky-white through 

 the different shades of cream color, vinaceous, olive and salmon 

 buffs to a rich vinaceous cinnamon and ecru-drab color. They are 

 generally moderately well flecked, blotched, or spotted with small 

 irregular shaped markings of different shades of brown, fawn and 

 Isabella color, mixed with more subdued shades of ecru-drab, 

 lavender, and lilac-gray. The markings are distributed over the 

 entire surface, and are usually heaviest about the larger end of the 

 egg, but never so profuse as to hide the ground color. In an 

 occasional specimen, they show a tendency to run into irregular 

 and mostly longitudinal lines or tracings ; in others these markings 

 are more bold, coarse, and fewer in numbers, and a single speci- 

 men before me shows comparatively few and rather faint markings. 

 On the whole the egg of the Ancient Murrelet is a rather char- 

 acteristic one, and not readily mistaken for anything else. The 

 first specimens to f^nd their way into the Oological Collection of the 

 U. S. National Museum were obtained by Dr. W. H. Ball of the 

 U. S. Coast Survey, at the Chica Islets in Akutan Pass, near 

 Unalaska Island, Alaska, on June 2, 1872. In his interesting 

 notes on the Avi-fauna of the Aleutian Islands, from Unalaska 

 Eastward, published in the Proceedings of the California Academy 



