[314] BIRDS OF OREGON 



We have no definite records regarding food of this species in Oregon 

 except that it is found commonly feeding on the great schools of small 

 fish that abound on the coast. 



Marbled Murrelet: 



Brachyramphus marmoratus (Gmelin) 



DESCRIPTION. Breeding plumage: "Upper parts dusky, back and sides barred with 

 deep rusty brown; under parts white, mottled with sooty brown. Winter plumage: 

 upper parts slaty, with white band on back of neck; scapulars mixed with white; 

 feathers of back tipped with plumbeous; flanks with dark gray stripes. Young: 

 upper parts dusky, collar and scapular spots indistinct; under parts white, mottled, 

 or speckled with sooty. Length: 9.50-10.00, wing 5, bill .60-. 70." (Bailey) Downy 

 young and nest: Unknown. Eggs: One egg taken by Cantwell from body of a bird is 

 pale yellow, thickly spotted with dark brown to black. 



DISTRIBUTION.- General: Summer range, coast of central Oregon northward to 

 Aleutian Islands. Winters from British Columbia southward to central California 

 (Monterey Bay and Santa Barbara). In Oregon: Regular summer resident of coast of 

 Lincoln, Lane, and Tillamook Counties. Found throughout year in coastal waters. 



THE HOME LIFE of the Marbled Murrelet is still one of the unsolved 

 mysteries of ornithology. When and where this small bird nests and 

 rears its young is still its secret, but it is assumed that it nests either in 

 the timber or on the bald hills facing the Coast Ranges from Oregon 

 northward. A number of years ago, in May, in the Prince of Wales 

 Archipelago, George Cantwell took a nearly perfect egg from a bird he 

 had shot. There is also a single egg in the J. H. Bowles collection, 

 probably this species, that was taken in Alaska by Stanton Warburton. 

 Woodcock (1901) first listed the species for Oregon from Yaquina Bay, 

 which is still one of its centers of abundance. It is a regular summer 

 resident of the coast, particularly in Lincoln, Tillamook, and Lane Coun- 

 ties, and is found in winter in the same general territory, but no one has 

 yet found its nest or eggs in Oregon, although Jewett (ic^d) recorded 

 one newly hatched downy young bird caught by Stanley Jewett, Jr., on 

 September 4, 1933, in the dense woods back of Devils Lake, Lincoln 

 County. It is much the youngest bird of the species the authors have 

 seen. It was not able to fly and presumably was at or near the nest site. The 

 authors have also seen a specimen just out of the down that A. B. Johnson 

 picked up near Minerva, Lane County, on September 8, 1918, and gave 

 to Overton Dowell, Jr., that is undoubtedly a young Marbled Murrelet. 

 Alex Walker collected several young birds at Pacific City in the summer 

 of 1931, and the authors have numerous immature specimens taken off 

 Depoe Bay during the summers of 1933 and 1934. 



Marbled Murrelets are rather shy and difficult to approach, and when 

 they are on the water considerable maneuvering on the part of the col- 

 lector is usually required before specimens can be taken. Ordinarily this 



