158 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS 



from the house; consequently the birds are tamer and more friendly 

 than I have ever seen them elsewhere. After considerable hard work, 

 crawling over, under, and around the piled-up bowlders, sometimes 

 almost standing on our heads, we succeeded in finding about half a 

 dozen nests, aided by the droppings and feathers in the pathways 

 leading to them; by rolling away some of the smaller rocks we were 

 able to photograph the eggs on their crude beds of small stones or 

 on the bare rocks. There were two eggs in each nest and apparently 

 few, if any, young had yet hatched. Most of the birds were very 

 tame, sitting quietly on their egg while we were at work, until fully 

 exposed to view, when they would crawl away out of sight; but some- 

 times they scrambled out under our feet and flew out to sea. I spent 

 an interesting afternoon, partially hidden among the rocks, watching 

 and photographing them. They all flew off into the water and swam 

 away at first, but I concealed myself near one of their favorite roost- 

 ing rocks, where they were accustomed to sit and sun themselves, and 

 waited patiently for their return. There was quite a flock of them 

 on the water just beyond the breakers, where I could plainly see them 

 swimming about, dipping their bills into the water occasionally, div- 

 ing, preening their feathers, or rising at intervals to shake the water 

 from their wings. As their confidence returned they worked in 

 gradually toward the rocks, riding buoyantly over the breakers or 

 diving through them, until one venturesome fellow flew up on to a 

 rock only 1 5 feet away and stared at me. His soft, shrill whistle gave 

 assurance to his companions that I was harmless and one by one they 

 flew up to join him until I had four of them just where I wanted to 

 photograph them. One or two settled down to rest in a sitting 

 posture; others walked about in a semierect attitude, their little red 

 legs being just long enough to keep their spiny tails clear of the rock; 

 others were more restless, coming and going all the time, with their 

 feet widespread in flight and held straight out behind. It was an 

 unusually good opportunity to photograph this species and I regret 

 exceedingly that nearly all of the plates were lost in some unaccount- 

 able way. 



Although the above-described nesting sites may be considered as 

 typical of the species or as generally preferred by it, the black 

 guillemot often nests in entirely different situations. Audubon 

 (1840) describes a perilous attempt of one of the sailors to secure 

 the eggs of this bird by swinging on a long rope over the face of a 

 rocky cliff, several hundred feet above the sea, in the Magdalen 

 Islands, and I have seen them there myself nesting in the fissures, 

 deep crevices, and caves of the soft red sandstone cliffs, where their 

 nests were practically inaccessible. On the south coast of Labra- 

 dor we found a few pairs breeding on Esquimo Island, where we 

 saw them flying into and out of crevices in the perpendicular cliffs 



