TOWNSEND AND ALLEN: LABRADOR BIRDS. 305 



more northern in its distribution than grylle but Frazar ('87, p. 2) 

 obtained a specimen taken on its nest near Cape Whittle in southern 

 Labrador. Turner says it "occurs in Hudson's Strait occasionally 

 only, according to my own observation. Plentiful on the eastern 

 coast of Labrador. Specimens procured at Fort George by Drexler, 

 July 17, 1861." Low ('06) found it "common everywhere in Hudson 

 Bay and in smaller numbers northward." 



As there seems to be no way of distinguishing this species from 

 grylle in life, we considered all the Black Guillemots we saw as belong- 

 ing to the latter species. 



Uria troile (Linn.). 

 Murre; "Turre." 



Common summer resident in southern part, a few winter. 



The Murre is still common locally on the south and east coasts 

 of Labrador where it nests in colonies on certain islands. When 

 Audubon visited the southern coast of the peninsula in 1833 he found 

 an immense colony breeding on the Murre Rocks near Great Mecat- 

 tina Harbor, and he gives an account of the destructive work of the 

 Nova Scotian "eggers" at whose hands the birds were under constant 

 persecution. In 1884, William Brewster recorded a colony at Paro- 

 queet Island, near Mingan Harbor, and Stearns speaks of the bird as 

 then abundant and breeding in vast colonies on the islands, especially 

 to the south of Esquimaux River. Frazar, in 1887, found them 

 "common but rapidly diminishing'' along the southeast coast. Bige- 

 low, in 1900, found them "fairly common to Hamilton Inlet" and 

 was told of a colony at Eclipse Harbor, slightly farther north. 



The form of this species known as U. ringvia occurs with the other 

 murres in the Labrador colonies. Audubon in his "Journal" (p. 372) 

 speaks of drawing a female at American Harbor on June 20, 1833; 

 Norton ('01, p. 146) records two taken at Herring Islands on August 

 22, 1891 ; and there is a male in the Bangs collection taken at L'Anse 

 au Loup, on July 1, 1899. Verrill ('62, p. 143) in writing of the birds 

 of Anticosti, estimated that about one half of the Murres breeding 

 there represented this phase. It is interesting to recall in connection 

 with the supposed specific distinctness of the ringvia birds, the state- 

 ment of S. H. C. Miiller ('62) that it "is certainly only a variety of 

 Uria troile. I have been an eye-witness that a Ringed and a Common 

 Guillemot have paired themselves together, and besides have seen a 

 ringvia feed a young one which a troile had under its wing." 



