Murres 401 



is quite remarkable. As by mutual and common consent, not only do the differ- 

 ent species keep apart, and occupy separate portions of their breeding ground, 

 but each individual bird apparently knows its place and keeps to it, going at 

 once to its own chosen spot to renew its eggs when the nest has been despoiled 

 of its treasure." The Murres make no nest, but lay the single very large egg 

 on a bare rocky shelf. In shape the egg is of an elongate pear form, a con- 

 figuration, it is said, that is a wise provision of nature for preventing the egg 

 from being knocked or easily rolled from the ledge when the bird is suddenly 

 startled, as when a gun is fired near the "rookery." The egg, being of this 

 pear shape, simply rolls around in a circle if there fortunately be sufficient 

 room, instead of rolling directly off, as, for example, the egg of a domestic fowl 

 would be inclined to do. In color the eggs are extremely variable, hardly any 

 two being alike. They vary in ground color from ivory-white to yellowish green, 

 dark green, pale blue, and reddish brown, or even almost black, while the mark- 

 ings of black and brown are equally variable. This variation in color perhaps 

 explains the reason for each bird recognizing its own egg so readily. According 

 to Nuttall, the bird is so solicitous for its egg that it may "be seized by the 

 hand or killed on the spot without flying from its favorite cliff." Incubation, 

 in which both parents take part, occupies four weeks, and it seems to be pretty 

 well authenticated that when the young are only partially grown and still unable 

 to fly, they are carried down to the sea on the backs of the old birds. 



Distinguished by a slightly shorter bill and rather darker head is Briin- 

 nich's Murre ( U. lomvia), which inhabits the coasts of the Arctic Ocean and 

 North Atlantic, ranging somewhat southward in winter, while its larger race, 

 known as Pallas's Murre ( U, 1. arra), is found along the coasts and islands of 

 Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands. This splendid bird, the A rrie of the 

 natives in imitation of its harsh note, breeds in countless thousands on the 

 Pribilof Islands, its single egg being large and very fancifully colored, a blue, 

 green, whitish, or grayish ground, shot with dark brown mottlings and patches. 

 At the risk of prolixity we quote extensively from Mr. Elliott's entertaining 

 account of them in their summer home on St. Georges Island. " They lay their 

 eggs upon the points and narrow shelves, on the faces of the cliff fronts to the 

 island, straddling over their eggs, side by side, as thickly as they can crowd, mak- 

 ing no nests. They quarrel desperately, but not by scolding; it is spirited 

 action, and so earnestly do they fight, that all along below the high bluffs of the 

 north shore of St. George, when I passed thereunder during the breeding season, 

 I stepped over hundreds of dead birds which had fallen and dashed themselves 

 to death upon the rocks while clinched in combat with their rivals. . . . Their 

 curious straddling, whereby the egg is warmed and hatched, lasts nearly twenty- 

 eight days, and then the young comes out with a dark, thick coat of down, which 

 is supplanted by the plumage and color of the old bird in less than six weeks. 

 They are fed by the disgorging parents, seemingly without a moment's intermis- 

 sion, uttering all the while between the gulps a hoarse, harsh croak, lugubrious 

 enough." Of the curious "dress-parade" of the males which takes place daily 

 after the females have begun to sit over the eggs, he says: "At regular hours in 



