KITTLITZ 'S MURRELET 147 



Nesting. For what we know about the breeding habits of Kitt- 

 litz's murrelet we are indebted to Col. John E. Thayer (1914), who 

 has what are probably the only authentic eggs of this rare species in 

 existence. The eggs were collected by Mr. Frank E. Kleinschmidt in 

 May and June, 1913, in the vicinity of Pavloff Bay, which "is near 

 the west end and on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, a little 

 northwest of the Shumagin Islands." He publishes Mr. Klein- 

 schmidt's notes in full, from which I quote the following: 



Eight years ago when I shot my first Kittlitz murrelet in the ice pack of 

 Bering Sea, an Eskimo, looking at the bird, said, "Him lay egg way up in snow 

 on mountain." I ridiculed the idea then of this bird laying its egg in the snow 

 far from the sea on the mountain side, but, keeping a constant lookout, expected 

 to find its breeding place on the rocky islands of Alaska or Siberia, perhaps 

 in company with the auks and murres. Now, however, I found the Eskimo's 

 words corroborated and the murrelet's solitary egg laid in just such a strange 

 place as he described. I inclose a photograph marking the spot where I found 

 it, and this egg also. 



During my recent expedition I spent the time between the first and middle 

 of May cruising in Chatham Strait, Icy Strait, and Glacier Bay. Among other 

 specimens we collected quite a few marbled murrelets and also several Kittlitz 

 murrelets. It was the height of the breeding season of these two species, for 

 we found in every specimen fully or partly formed eggs, most of which, how- 

 ever, were broken in the collecting. However, I preserved, of the Kittlitz 

 murrelet, one fully formed and colored egg, besides several broken ones. 



On June 5, while lying at anchor off Pavloff Bay, Alaska Peninsula, a trap- 

 per and miner came aboard, who saw me preparing skins of the Kittlitz and 

 marbled murrelets. He recognized the Kittlitz immediately, and said it was 

 strange that a water bird should lay its egg far inland, high on the mountain 

 sides, in the snow. Upon closer questioning he said he meant that the egg was 

 laid, not on the snow, but far above timber line on the mountain, in bare 

 spots, amid the snow. In the 16 years he had been there he had found but two 

 eggs, but he remembered well the eggs and bird. I had him describe the egg 

 carefully before I showed him the one I possessed, and it tallied with his de- 

 scription. 



On June 6 I was hunting brown bear for the Carnegie Museum, in company 

 with this man, and while crossing a high divide, a Kittlitz murrelet flew past 

 us. "There is your bird," called the trapper immediately; "it has a nest 

 here somewhere." On June 10 I saw with my glasses a she-bear and two cubs 

 far up in the snow of Mount Pavloff. To reach them I had to climb several 

 miles inside the snow line, with only here and there a few bare spots to give 

 me a much-desired walking ground, when close to my feet rose a Kittlitz mur- 

 relet. There on the bare lava, without even the pretension of a hollow, lay 

 a single egg. 



Eggs. Colonel Thayer (1914) describes the eggs as follows: 



The egg found on the ground, on the side of Pavloff Mountain, June 10, 

 1913, has a ground color of olive lake, dotted all over with different-sized 

 markings of dark and light brown. It measures, in inches, 2.29 by 1.40. The 

 other egg, taken from the oviduct of a bird May 29, 1913, is perfectly formed, 

 and was evidently about to be laid. Its ground color is yellow glaucous, with 

 dark-brown spots over the whole egg. The measurements are 2.46 by 1.45. 

 The second egg taken from a bird's oviduct was so broken that it could not 



