212 ALASKA. 



selves to death upon the rocks ^Yliile cliucbed in eombat with 

 rivals in midair. 



" They lay but a single egg, upon the bare rock. The egg is 

 large and very fancifully colored, a bluish-green ground with 

 dark-brown mottliugs and patches, but exceedingly variable in 

 size and coloring. The outline of the egg is pyriform, some- 

 times more acute. It is the most palatable of all the varieties 

 found on the islands, having no disagreeable flavor, and, when 

 perfectly fresh, being fully as good as a hen's egg. 



" Incubation lasts nearly twenty-eight days, and the young 

 come out with a dark thick coat of dowu, which is speedily sup- 

 planted by the plumage and color of the old birds within six 

 weeks of hatching. They are fed by the disgorging parents, 

 apparently without intermission, uttering all the while a harsh 

 rough croak, lugubrious enough. 



'' The males and females have no sexual distinction as to size, 

 shape, or plumage. On Saint George's Island, while the 

 females begin to set, along toward the end of June and first of 

 July, the males go flying around the island in great files and 

 platoons, always circling against, or quartering on, the wind, 

 at regular hours in the morning and the evening, mahing a dark 

 girdle of birds more than a quarter of a mile hroad andtliirty 

 miles long, icliirling round and round the island, and forcing upon 

 the most casual observer a lasting impression. The flight of 

 the 'arrie' is straight, steady, and rapid, the wings beating 

 quickly and jjowerfully ; it makes no noise nor utters any cry, 

 save a low, hoarse, grunting croak, and then only when quar- 

 reling or mating. 



'•This 'arrie' is a valuable bird to the inhabitants of the 

 Seal Islands, and, indeed, for that matter, is the only one that 

 has much economic worth to man in Bering Sea." 



