34 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



about the islands: the first party to take possession each 

 year manages to hold their position against all comers and 

 to even defy the United States authorities to remove them. 

 Being trespassers, they have, on more than one occasion, 

 been taken away, but only to return the following year. 

 This season the party secreted themselves in Murre Cave 

 while the revenue cutter Corwin hovered about the island 

 for hours. Living in caves or tents improvised from old 

 sails and spars their requirements of life are few. A cotton 

 flour sack (1001b. size) is made into an egg shirt by cutting 

 out a hole in the bottom for the head and one on each side 

 for arm holes; a gathering string is passed around the mouth 

 of the sack which, when it is put on, is drawn tightly about 

 the waist; a slit down the front of the shirt from the neck 

 makes an opening for stowing the eggs, while a padding of 

 Farallon weed inside on the bottom forms a cushion for 

 them. 



Arriving on the picking ground or in a murre cave, they 

 set to work, using both hands when possible. The birds 

 take wing by pitching from their narrow shelves or scram- 

 ble pell-mell out of the cave past the eggers. Eighteen to 

 twenty dozen murres eggs is considered a good load for a 

 shirt, and about as heavy and bulky a load as a man will 

 care to pack. Having filled the shirt the eggs are emptied 

 into a basket to be carried to the landing. If overtaken by 

 night, the eggs are dumped into a pile until the next day. 

 The baskets filled with eggs, or the heaps whicli sometimes 

 contain as many as one hundred and fifty to three hundred 

 dozen, are most carefully covered with old sacks or weeds 

 and weighted with rocks to prevent the gulls from getting 

 at the contents. A few of these persistent thieves invaria- 

 bly hang around the egg heaps and baskets, and if an open- 

 ing is espied revealing to sight an egg, they pull and tug at 

 the weeds or sacks till the egg is obtained, when the lucky 

 bird flies away with it, followed by others whose screams 

 soon attract a large congregation about the eggs, which in 

 an incredibly short space of time are all taken. 



