190 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS 



the thick-billed guillemot, as it was formerly called, or the Briin- 

 nich's murre, as the eastern race of this species is now called, is one 

 of the commonest sea birds, a characteristic bird of the rough, cold, 

 northern ocean, following the first advance of spring among the break- 

 ing fields of ice to its summer breeding grounds on the rugged cliffs 

 of our Arctic coasts. 



Spring. Although it pushes northward as early as it can find 

 open water, its breeding season does not begin, even in the southern 

 portion of its range, until the middle of June or later. When we 

 visited Bird Rock, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which is near the 

 southern limit of its breeding range, on June 24, 1904, the breeding 

 season was well under way, but all the eggs examined were fresh or 

 nearly so. The lighthouse keeper and his family welcome the return 

 of the birds to the rock, after their long and lonesome winter, as a 

 sign of coming spring and the opening of navigation. A few of the 

 birds also serve as a welcome addition to their table, for they are 

 fairly good eating where other fresh meat can not be obtained. The 

 Bird Rock colony was estimated to contain at that time about 10,000 

 birds, made up of gannets, kittiwakes, razor-billed auks, Briinnich's 

 murres, murres, and puffins, their relative abundance being about in 

 the order named. The two species of murres occupied the narrower 

 ledges, which were not wide enough for the gannets, and were scat- 

 tered all over the perpendicular sides of the red sandstone rock, both 

 species being more or less intermingled and living in perfect har- 

 mony. On the south coast of Labrador west of Natashquan, where 

 the murres were once so abundant, we found in 1909 only a few scat- 

 tering birds and no breeding colonies. In 1884 Mr. William Brew- 

 ster found a large colony of murres at the Parroquet Islands off Min- 

 gan, but at the present day not a murre is to be found breeding along 

 the Labrador coast to the west of Mingan. Many years of persistent 

 egging by Indians, fishermen, and professional eggers have prac- 

 tically exterminated them. 



Mr. Lucien M. Turner found this species breeding abundantly on 

 the Atlantic coast of Labrador in 1882, notably on the outlying 

 islands of Hamilton Inlet, Davis Inlet, Cape Mugford, and Cape 

 Chidley. He says in his unpublished notes: 



Wherever these murres are found during the summer months there they 

 breed. They select the high cliffs on which suitable ledges project. No attempt 

 js made to construct a nest for in all the instances which have come under my 

 observation the egg, sometimes two, are deposited on the bare rock. If the 

 vicinity is one affording an abundance of food, many thousands of these birds 

 resort to a single cliff to breed and often the eggs are so close together that one 

 can scarcely step without touching two or more eggs. 



Since that time great changes have taken place, for in 1912 I 

 cruised the whole length of this coast, as far north as Cape Mugford, 

 and saw only one solitary Briinnich's murre. 



