CALIFORNIA MURRE 183 



one of the largest and certainly the most famous of the breeding 

 resorts of this species. These islands are far too well known and 

 have been too often written up to require any elaborate description 

 here. But, for the benefit of those of us who have never been there, 

 I am tempted to quote the following short historical and descriptive 

 note by Mr. W. Otto Emerson (1904) : 



From the old Spanish chronicles we learn of the discovery of the Farallone 

 Islands in 1543 by Ferrelo. It was Sir Francis Drake, however, who gave us 

 the first particular description of the "Island of St. James," as they were then 

 known (1579). Drake, it seems, landed to replenish his larder with seal meat. 

 Doubtless he laid in a stock of eggs, for a man is never too old a boy to collect 

 eggs where they may be had for the taking. In 1775 Bodega and Maurelle, on 

 their way up the northwest coast, named the islands "Los Farallones de los 

 Frayles," in honor of the monks who had discovered San Francisco Bay in 

 1769, the same year that the Franciscans founded their first mission in Alta 

 California, at San Diego. The first settlers on the islands, we know, were Rus- 

 sians from the North, who came with Aleuts to fish and seal hunt. There 

 remain to-day, on the southeastern part of the island, the well-preserved stone 

 walls of their low huts, but the date of their occupancy is unknown. 



The islands are formed of crystalline granite, r ridge rising many hundred 

 feet above the ocean floor. Sugar Loaf Rock in Fishermans Bay is an excep- 

 tion, being a conglomerate of coarse gravel standing isolated 185 feet above 

 sea level. South Farallone Island is the largest of the group. At water 

 line the rocks are of a blackish brown where the surf beats, and then above 

 high water mark change to a yellow or light grayish tone over all the island, 

 where not occupied by the roosting or nesting areas of the sea fowl or changed 

 by the presence of introduced plants. The granite readily yields to a pick 

 and offers a firm footing but is rather hard on shoe leather. Shore lines are 

 all cut up into great channel-like troughs, with arched grottos running far into 

 the rock and filled with gorgeously tinted marine life. There are natural 

 bridges, pot holes, and shelving ledges of all descriptions. 



Mr. Walter E. Bryant (1888) says that the California murres 

 "begin to arrive on the island in myriad numbers by the first of 

 April. Their arrival usually occurs at night, when great numbers 

 come suddenly, and perhaps leave the next day; especially are they 

 likely to leave soon after coming and before mating if a storm 

 occurs, returning, of course, later." 



Nesting. Mr. Milton S. Ray (1904) gives a very good account 

 of the main breeding colonies on the Farallones as follows: 



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 Shulbrick Point, with its vast 

 bird population, is a wonder to behold. All ledges and projections, as well 

 as the cave floor, were murre covered, and on our approach the great colony 

 became a scene of animation, with a vast nodding of dusky heads and a 

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



