BIRDS AS FOOD 221 



cient young to maintain their numbers. The 

 rookeries every year became smaller and the birds 

 more scattered. Finally, it no longer paid the 

 hunters to visit the islands. 



But, while the trade was at its best, the cargoes 

 of eggs were shipped to the nearest market. 

 Great quantities would be broken in transit, or, if 

 the weather proved warm, they would rot. Only 

 a small percentage reached their destination, and 

 these were as a rule of extremely poor quality. 

 And the prices obtained were low. 



The fate of the Pacific coast rookeries was 

 identical to the fate of those on the eastern sea- 

 board. Islands, cliffs, and sand-dunes, from 

 Alaska to southern California, were stripped of 

 their avian products. So enormous were the colo- 

 nies of murres alone that six men have been 

 known to load four tons of eggs into a vessel at 

 Walrus Island in Bering Sea in three hours. 



At one time millions of gulls and murres nested 

 in the Farallone Islands, situated about thirty 

 miles from the Golden Gate. Egg collecting went 

 on there for fifty years until only a remnant of the 

 rookeries remained. Corporations were organ- 

 ized to handle the industry, so important did it 

 seem. Vessel-load after vessel-load arrived at 

 the market in San Francisco. Half a million eggs 

 were taken in 1854 from South Farallone Island 

 alone ; thirty years later this number had fallen to 

 three hundred thousand; and in 1896 only 



