82 USEFUL BIRDS. 
This tribute of flesh, blood, and feather is levied largely 
upon those orders of birds which in domestication become 
poultry, and in the wild state are known as game birds; but 
many small land birds have become victims of man’s greed, 
and the sea birds have been forced to contribute-to his food 
supply. 
The eggs of certain Gulls, Terns, Herons, Murres, and 
Ducks that breed in large colonies find a ready sale in the 
market, or furnish a part of the food supply of the people 
who live near these breeding places. Wholesale egging was 
carried on along the coast of Massachusetts and other New 
England States, until the Gulls and Terns were in most cases 
driven away from their breeding places. The inhabitants 
along the shores of the southern States, as well as those 
on the Pacific coast, gathered the eggs of the sea birds by 
boatloads for many years. For nearly fifty years Murres’ 
eggs were collected on the Farallone Islands and shipped 
to the San Francisco market. It is said that in 1854 more 
than five hundred thousand eggs were sold there in less than 
two months. This must have been an important item in the 
food supply of the young and growing city. Mr. H. W. 
Elliot mentions that on the occasion of his first visit to 
Walrus Island in the Behring Sea six men loaded a badarrah, 
carrying four tons, to the water’s edge with Murres’ eggs. 
On Laysan, one of the Hawaiian Islands, there is a great 
breeding place of an Albatross (Diomedea immutabilis). 
Such immense quantities of their eggs have been gathered 
that cars have been loaded with them.! All this egg collect- 
ing, however, should be stopped, for it tends to exterminate 
the birds, and all the eggs needed for human consumption 
can be produced by poultry. 
Sea birds which breed on isolated islands or barren shores 
feed mainly on animal food, which they get from the sea. 
Guano consists of the excreta and ejecta of sea birds, mixed 
with the remains of birds, fish, and otheranimals. Itis found 
on the gathering places of these birds. In the rainless lati- 
1A Review of Economic Omithology in the United States, by Dr. T. S. 
Palmer. Yearbook, United States Departinent of Agriculture, 1899, pp. 271, 272. 
See this paper also for an account of the guano trade. 
