192 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS 



the island their home, and with them are associated hundreds of glaucous 

 gulls and guillemots and thousands of kittiwakes and fulmars; every niche, 

 every ledge, furnishes nesting places; I believe the number of birds on the 

 cliffs is limited only by the number of possible nesting or perching places. 

 The ledges formed by the harder, projecting strata are covered with birds; 

 by the files of birds ranged upon them, one may trace the ledges with one's 

 eyes as far as one can see. When the rock back of the narrow ledge is dark 

 brown or chocolate brown, the white underparts of the perched birds form a 

 line that is so distinctly visible that it seems like a band of white marble, 

 between the black bands of the darker portions of the birds. Little niches or 

 grottoes in the cliffs exhibit a salt-and-pepper admixture of white and black. 

 Joint fissures, filled by debris or scree, form high columns of similar admix- 

 ture. The noise on the cliffs is appalling; it sounds like a colossal poultry 

 exhibit, or a combination of this with a similar crow rookery. 



The cliffs resemble nothing so much as a mountain-sized beehive, with the 

 bees swarming. When a gun is fired near, the cliffs become a pandemonium 

 of startled cries and shrieks and screams, and a chaos of frightened forms 

 dashing downward and outward like a storm cloud, over the ice. The report 

 of the gun but reaches the cliffs, when the birds all leave with a rush of wings 

 that sounds for all the world like a tornado, so tumultuous is it. In a few 

 moments the birds return, to fly back and forth until their alarm is abated. 

 They assemble again in long rows, tier upon tier, crowded so close together 

 that it must be a tax upon their voluble good natures and alcidine tempers, to 

 allow yet one more to alight in accordance with the saying "Always room for 

 one more." As it is, there seems to be but little argument over the crowding, 

 though occasionally there are contests for the more desirable places, 'and some 

 particularly aggressive bird coming in tired from the sea, pushes some more 

 passive one off his ledge. Occasionally, too, a pair get into a real bill-to-bill 

 fight, and tumble off the cliff, hanging on to each other for dear life, down 

 upon the icefoot, or into the sea. In the latter case, the fight usually con- 

 tinues fiercely for some time, and then suddenly, as if by agreement, it seems, 

 they mutually abandon the contest and swim apart, preening themselves and 

 smoothing their ruffled feelings and feathers. 



The millions of birds fringing the ledges of these cliffs leave them for periods 

 of several days in the early part of the season, but when the brooding season 

 begins they sally out in the morning in long lines and files to the open water 

 where they feed, to return to the cliffs in the evening. Though large numbers 

 are constantly coming and going throughout the 24-hour day, the greatest 

 exodus is at about 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning. Upon alighting on the ledges 

 when they return, the birds face toward the cliff, give their wings a flutter or 

 two, shake out their feathers vigorously, and preen them carefully. After 

 a glance or two around to see which of their neighbors are at home and a 

 friendly exchange of greetings with those nearest them, they face about and 

 make a careful and critical examination of the prospect. 



The Briinnich's murre, like its relative the common murre, makes 

 no attempt at nest building. Its single egg is laid on a bare open 

 ledge of rock, generally on some perpendicular and inaccessible cliff 

 facing the sea, where its pyriform, pointed shape causes it to roll 

 in a circle instead of rolling off the rock. The endless variety of 

 color patterns in the eggs evidently assists the parent bird in find- 

 ing its own egg among thousands of others in the colony. I have 

 frequently seen a murre, on its arrival in a colony, waddle about 



