THE BRUNNICH MURRE. 639 



No. 320. 



BRUNNICH MURRE. 



A. O. U. No. 31. Uria lorn via (Linn.). 



Description. Adult in summer : Upper parts sooty black, the secondaries 

 narrowly tipped with white; chin, throat, fore-neck, and sides of head and neck 

 snuffy brown; remaining under parts pure white; bill black, the "basal portion of 

 cutting edge of upper mandible thickened and conspicuously light-colored." 

 Adult in winter and immature : Similar, but entire under parts, including chin, 

 throat, fore-neck, and sides of head and neck, white. Length 16.50 (41.9) ; wing 

 8.25 (209.6) ; tail 1.85 (47.) ; bill 1.45 (36.8) ; depth at angle .55 (14.) ; tarsus 

 1.40 (35.6). 



Recognition Marks. Duck size; black above, white below; small wings and 

 tail ; upright posture on land or water ; rapid flight. 



Nesting. Does not breed in Ohio. "Nests in communities, side by side 

 on the bare ledges of rocky cliffs." Eggs, one, subpyriform, varying from dull 

 white or buffy to bluish, bluish-green and emerald-green, strikingly spotted, 

 blotched and scrawled with deep chocolate, and obscurely with lilac. Av. size, 

 3.15 x 2.00 (80. x 50.8). 



General Range. Coasts and islands of the North Atlantic and eastern 

 Arctic Oceans; south to the lakes of northern New York and the coast of new 

 Jersey. Breeding from the Gulf of St. Lawrence northward. 



Range in Ohio. Accidental in considerable numbers during December, 1896. 



THOSE of us who experience poignant regret upon hearing the tales of 

 Wild Pigeons which "darkened the sun" thinking that we were perhaps 

 born a generation too late would probably have our longing for the "tu- 

 multuous rushing of myriad wings" thoroughly satisfied could we visit the 

 breeding haunts of the Guillemots in Spitzbergen or off the coast of Alaska. 

 Sober observers tell us that in some places during the breeding season, the 

 roar of a Guillemot rookery will drown the sound of the thundering sea in 

 time of storm; and a gentleman who once visited St. George Island, one of 

 the Pribylov group, affirmed that the flying males of this species at certain 

 hours of the day "form a dark girdle of birds more than a quarter of a mile 

 broad and thirty miles long, whirling round and round the island." 



In the winter of '96-7 a driving storm from the Labrador coast caught 

 up a considerable number of these multitudinous sea-fowl and swept them 

 far inland. When the storm had spent its fury the Murres were found pro- 

 miscuously stranded in the lakes and water-ways, or wandering about dazed 

 and helpless in the fields of Ohio, Indiana, and neighboring states. Many 

 specimens were taken by the hand and others shot at scattered localities ; and 

 the village oracles were often sorely put to it to tell what this strange fowl 

 might be. The first published record 1 for Ohio was of the one taken by Rev. 



1 Bulletin No. 13, Wilson Ornithological Chapter, p. 16. 



