184 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS 



twenties, flew out, or by sprawling and flapping over the rocks and into the 

 foaming surf, thus gained the open sea. Some were terribly thrown about 

 in the breakers but apparently received little injury. On our entrance the 

 main body took flight, with a mighty roar of wings, and so close did they 

 fill the cave that it behooved us to get behind bowlders to prevent being 

 struck by them. Many birds still remained in the cave, retreating deep into 

 the branching recesses or, sheeplike, huddled into the corners, where they 

 could be picked up by the hand. The multitudes which took wing would wait, 

 scattered over the water about a quarter of a mile from shore, until the com- 

 motion was over and would then come trooping back to the cave. 



Messrs. Finley and Bohlman in various illustrated articles and 

 lectures have made famous the great breeding colonies of California 

 murres on the Three Arch Rocks, off the coast of Oregon. In these 

 wonderful rookeries the population is fully as dense as on the Faral- 

 lones, though fewer naturalists have seen them. Mr. Finley (1905) 

 has given us an interesting account of the behavior of the murres 

 in their efforts to find their own eggs, as follows: 



When a murre arrived from the fishing grounds, he lit on the outer edge of 

 the table, where he looked about after two or three elaborate bows. Then, 

 like a man in a Fourth of July crowd, he looked for an opening in the dense 

 front ranks. Seeing none, he boldly squeezed in, pushing and shoving to right 

 and left. The neighbors resented such behavior and pecked at the new arrival 

 with their long, sharp bills, but on he pressed, amid much opposition and com- 

 plaint, until he reached his wife. They changed places, and he took up his 

 vigil on the egg. The wife, upon leaving the rookery, instead of taking flight 

 from where she stood, went through the former proceeding, although in reverse 

 order, much to the disgust of the neighbors. They made a vigorous protest, 

 and sped the departing sister with a fusillade of blows, until she arrived at 

 the edge of the ledge, where she dropped off into space. Others were coming 

 and going and kept up an interesting performance for the onlooker from above. 



Then we went down and scared all the birds from the ledge and watched 

 them return. Almost before we got back into position the first one pitched 

 awkwardly in and lit on the edge. She sat for a little bit clucking and cran- 

 ing her neck. Then she hobbled up the rock past two eggs, bowing and look- 

 ing around. On she went in her straddling gait, stopping and cocking her head 

 on one side till I saw her pass eight or nine eggs. Finally she poked an egg 

 gently with her bill, looked it over, and tucked it under her leg. By that time 

 the ledge was half full of birds, all cackling, pecking at each other, and shuffling 

 about looking among the eggs. It took almost half an hour for life in the 

 colony to drop back to its normal stage. 



My own experience with the nesting habits of the California murre 

 was gained on the bird islands of Bering Sea. Among the vast 

 hordes of Pallas's murres, which we found breeding on the rocky 

 pinnacles of Bogoslof Island on July 4, 1911, we saw a few scattering 

 pairs of California murres and on the flat top of the high, rounded 

 cliff at the west end of the island, the sides of which were covered 

 with Pallas's murres, we found several small compact colonies of 

 California murres sitting on their eggs in close bunches of 15 or 

 20 pairs. No other breeding colonies were found among the Aleutian 

 Islands, but we found plenty of murres, mostly of this species, on 



