THE CALIFORNIA MURRE \l HOME 161 



tliat t lit* only localities on tin- California coasl where sea-lions 

 are now safe from annihilation arc the light-house reserva- 

 tions, the most important of which are the Farallones. 



The following vivid pen-picture of the California Murre 

 at home, on Hall Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, i-- from the 

 pen of Mr. John Burroughs ("Harriman Alaska Expedition," 

 p. 109): 



The first tiling that attracted our attention was the Murres "urric" 

 the Aleuts call them — about their rookeries on the cliffs. Their numbers 

 darkened the air. As we approached, the faces «>t' the rocks seemed paved 

 with them, with a sprinkling of gulls, puffins, black cormorants and auk- 

 lets. 



On landing at a break in the cliffs when- a little creek came down to 

 the sea, our first impulse was to walk along the brink and look down 

 upon the Murres, and see them swarm out beneath our feet. On the 

 discharge of a gun, the air would he black with them, while the (litis 

 apparently remained as populous as ever. They sal on little shelves, 

 or niches, with their black hacks to the sea. each bird covering one egg 

 with iU tail-feathers. In places one could have reached down ami seized 

 them by the neck, they were so tame and SO near tin- top of the rock-. 

 I believe <>ne of our party did actually thus procure a specimen. It was 

 a strange spectacle, and we lingered long looking upon it. To behold 

 sea-fowls like flies, in uncounted millions, was a new experience. 



Everywhere in Bering Sea the Murres swarm like vermin. It seems 

 as if there was a Murre to every square yard of surface. They were 

 flying about over the ship, or flapping over the water away from her front 

 at all tinier. I noticed that they could not get up from the water except 

 against the wind; the wind lifted them as it does a kite. With the wind, 

 or in a calm, they skimmed along on the surface, their heads bent forward, 

 their wings beating the water impatiently. Unable to rise, they would 

 glance behind them in a frightened manner, then plunge beneath the waves 

 until they thought the danger had passed. Their tail- are so shorl that, 

 in flying, their two red feet stretched behind them to do the duly of a tail. 



Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey says thai '"When incubating 

 one bird stavs on the nest during the daw and the other dur- 

 ing the night, and when the exchange is made a great comma- 



