IN GREEN ALASKA 



our attention was the murres — "arries," the Aleuts 

 call them — about their rookeries on the cliffs. Their 

 numbers darkened the air. As we approached, the 

 faces of the rocks seemed paved with them, with a 

 sprinkling of gulls, puffins, black cormorants, and 

 auklets. On landing at a break in the cliffs where 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 became ])lack 

 with them, while the cliffs apparently remained as 

 populous as ever. They sat on little shelves or niches 

 with their black backs to the sea, each bird covering 

 one egg with its tail feathers. In places one could 

 have reached down and seized them by the neck, 

 they were so tame and so near the top of the rocks. I 

 believe one of our party did actually thus procure a 

 specimen. It was a strange spectacle, and we lingered 

 long looking upon it. To behold sea fowl like flies 

 in uncounted millions was a new experience. Every- 

 where in Bering Sea the murres sw^arm 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 

 times. I noticed that they could not get up from the 

 water except against the wind ; the w^ind lifted them 

 as it does a kite. With the wind or in a calm they 

 skimmed along on the surface, their heads bent for- 

 ward, their wings beating the water impatiently. 



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