The common murre typifies breeding seabirds in the 

 Gulf of the Farallones. Before the 1850's. an esti- 

 mated 400,000 to 600.000 murres bred on Southeast 

 Farallon Island, but this population was decimated 

 by egg collecting in the wake of the California Gold 

 Rush (see inset, courtesy of the California State 

 Library), before chickens had been brought in suffi- 

 cient numbers to provide fresh eggs for the burgeon- 

 ing San Francisco populace. 



Seabirds 45 



