400 The Plover-like Birds 



"when the hives are placed, for acres, about fifty feet apart. Now, imagining 

 that all these hives swarm at once, that each bee is larger than a Swallow and 

 flying in an almost straight line, each about its own business, we may then have 

 some idea of what can be seen every summer evening about seven o'clock on 

 the west side of the village of St. George." They begin to arrive with great 

 regularity each year about May ist or 4th, and by June ist or 6th have come 

 in such numbers as to suggest to Elliott the swarms of locusts that sometimes 

 infest the western plains. They frequent the loose stony reefs and boulder- 

 strewn bars of the island, making no nest, but depositing the single egg deep 

 down among the loose rocks or deep within the crevices and chinks in the faces 

 of the cliffs. "To walk over their breeding grounds at this season," Mr. Elliott 

 says, "is highly interesting and most amusing, as the noise of hundreds and 

 thousands of these little birds, w r hich are directly under your feet, gives rise 

 to an endless variation of volume of sound as it comes up from the stony holes 

 and caverns below." The males leave early in the morning for their feeding 

 grounds far out to sea, where they secure their food of small water-shrimps 

 and sea-fleas, and returning in the evening bring food for the young, and, it is 

 thought probable, for their sitting partners as well. 



Murrelets. Passing now to the second subfamily, brief mention may be 

 made of the so-called Murrelets, the eight species of which are disposed among 

 three genera, and all occurring in the Pacific, though not reaching so far north 

 as those last considered. They are for the most part slightly larger than the 

 Auklets, approximating ten inches in length, and have a short, slender, com- 

 pressed bill and a rather plainly colored plumage, without ornamental crest 

 of any kind. It is possible that certain portions of the bill may be shed 

 annually, as in the forms previously described, but this point is not satisfactorily 

 settled. 



Murres. Approaching rather closely to the Razor-billed Auk in structure, 

 plumage, and habits are the Murres and Guillemots, each represented by four 

 or five species and subspecies. The Murres (Uria) are easily distinguished 

 from the typical Auks by possessing a narrow bill destitute of grooves, and 

 from the Guillemots in having the nostrils completely concealed within a dense, 

 velvety feathering. Both are represented in the North Atlantic and North 

 Pacific. 



The Common Murre ( U. troille) may be selected as the type of this group. 

 It is about sixteen inches long and has the upper parts a rich velvety brown 

 and the lower parts pure white, with a small spot of white on the wings. It is 

 found on the coasts of the North Atlantic, nesting on the American side from 

 Nova Scotia northward and ranging south in winter to southern New England 

 and to the Mediterranean on the European side. During the nesting season 

 they assemble by hundreds or frequently thousands, in suitable locations such 

 as cliffs, rocky islands, and bold shores, where they rear their young, often in 

 company with various other species. "Notwithstanding the immense numbers 

 that sometimes resort to the same rock," says Dr. Brewer, "there is a freedom 

 from confusion and a prevalence of order and system in their operations that 



