mmmm 



372 



AUDUBON 



paid me a visit, and very generously offered to change our 

 whale-boat for a large one, and his pilot boat for ours; 

 the industry of this man is extraordinary. The specimen 

 of Uria troile drawn with a white line round the eye* was 

 a female; the one without this line was a young bird. I 

 have drawn seventeen and a half hours this day, and my 

 poor head aches badly enough. One of Captain Billings' 

 mates told me of the Procellarias breeding in great num- 

 bers in and about Mount Desert Island rocks, in the 

 months of June and July; there they deposit their one 

 •vhite egg in the deepest fissures of the rocks, and sit 

 upon it only during the night. When approached whilst 

 on the egg, they open their wings and bill, and offer to 

 defend themselves from the approach of intruders. The 

 Eider Ducks are seen leaving the islands on which they 

 breed, at daybreak every fair morning, in congregated 

 flocks of males or females separately, and proceed to cer- 

 tain fishing grounds where the water is only a few fath- 

 oms deep, and remain till towards evening, when the 

 females sit on their eggs for the night, and the males 

 group on the rocks by themselves. This valuable bird is 

 extremely abundant here; we find their nests without any 

 effort every time we go out. So sonorous is the song of 

 the Fox-colored Sparrow that I can hear it for hours, 

 most distinctly, from the cabin where I am drawing, and 

 yet it is distant more than a quarter of a mile. This bird 

 is in this country what the Towhee Bunting is in the 

 Middle States. 



June 22. I drew all day at an adult Gannet which we 

 brought from the great rock of which I have spoken; it 

 was still in good order. Many eggs of the Arctic Tern 

 were collected to-day, two or three in a nest ; these birds 

 are as shy here as all others, and the moment John and 



1 This is the so-called Bridled Guillemot, Uria ringvia. The white mark 

 is not characteristic of sex, age, or season. The bird is not specifically 

 distinct from Uria troile. — E. C. , -. .. 



