AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 269 



of the cliff, their task must have been a very laborious one, unless, as 

 the small boy said of the Chipmunk, 'they began at the other end.' 



The burrows varied in length from about eight to thirty inches and 

 terminated in a larger chamber to give the occupant room in which to 

 turn about. Most of them had a scant lining of fine black rootlets up- 

 on which the single egg was laid. At this time the week of July 

 eighteenth, nearly all the eggs appeared to be nearly ready to hatch 

 although we did not find a single nest with a young bird in it. When 

 the nests were opened the old birds huddled back in the darkest cor- 

 ners, creeping about like gray mice and seeming to be rather dazed by 

 the sudden exposure to the light. Some of them immediately com- 

 menced digging and the progress that they made was amazing. They 

 seemed to use both their bill and feet, the former after the manner of 

 a pickaxe and the latter as shovels; it took only a few minutes for them 

 to tunnel in so as to be completely out of sight. When taken in the 

 hand they offered but little resistance beyond sometimes ejecting from 

 the mouth the offensive oily yellowish fluid upon which they feed 

 their young. When placed on the ground they waddled, or perhaps 

 crawled would better express the manner of their locomotion, back into 

 their burrows; only two of them rose in flight from the ground, indeed, 

 it seems to be quite a difficult matter for them to get the necessary 

 spring to successfully launch themselves into the air, from terra firma; 

 the surface of the water along which they go pattering with their little 

 feet is much more to their liking. When thrown into the air they 

 would give a couple vigorous flaps with their wings and then swoop 

 out of sight over the face of the cliff. My attempts to successfully 

 photograph them when thus flying were rather futile, for upon first 

 starting their flight, they pursued such a devious course and got out 

 of range so quickly that they were gone before I could get a satisfac- 

 tory focus on them. 



None of the birds handled or seen made the slightest sound, but at 

 night we could frequently hear them as they went to and fro from one 

 nest which was located within ten feet of the house, under a large rock. 

 Their notes are very similar to the twittering of a flock of Swallows. 



