LIFE HISTORIES OP NORtH AMEEICAN PEfKELS AND PELICANS. 43 



summer loiterers). Late dates of departure: Alaska, Point Barrow, 

 September 19 ; Herald Island, September 26. 



Egg (iffl^es.— Kamtschatka : Four records, June 4 to 20. Semidi 

 Islands, Alaska : Two records, June 30 and July 1. Copper Island: 

 Two records, May 14. 



FULMARUS EODGERSI Cusin. 

 BODQESS FTTLHAB. 



HABITS. 



A southwest gale in Bering Sea drove us to shelter under the lofty, 

 red granitic cliffs of Hall Island, the summer home of this boreal 

 fulmar. The sea was lashed to foam by the gale which cut off the 

 tops of the waves and sent them scudding along before it in a foamy 

 spray; off shore was a heavy bank of fog or dusky clouds, against 

 which was clearly outlined a beautiful aurora borealis, a complete 

 semicircle above the sea, a broad band of light showing all the colors 

 of the spectrum ; the sky above was clear blue ; and over the frowning, 

 rocky cliffs of the island rolled heavy clouds of fog, shrouding them 

 in misty haze and chilling us with the cold dampness of the snow- 

 drifts on the hiUs. The swift- winged murres and puffins, returning 

 to their nests, were flying high and made but slow progress against 

 the gale, but the fulmars gloried in its fury and sailed at ease against 

 it under perfect control and with perfect mastery of its forces. The 

 fiercest storms at sea have no terrors for these birds ; the treacherous 

 " woolies," terrific wind squalls, which sweep down without warning 

 over those forbidding cliffs, can not drive them from their homes. 

 There they sit upon their eggs and rear their young on narrow shelves 

 of rock, hundreds of feet perhaps, above the rough and stormy 

 Arctic sea. 



Nesting. — On July 9, 1911, we examined another large colony of 

 Rodgers fulmars at the north end of St. Matthew Island where 

 they were breeding in company with large numbers of PaUas murres 

 and a few California murres on the precipitous rocky cliffs which 

 towered for 200 or 300 feet above the sea. The murres were mostly 

 on the lower ledges but the fulmars were scattered all over the 

 higher ledges in inaccessible places on the perpendicular or over- 

 hanging cliffs. In a sheltered cove we found a landing place and 

 climbed up a steep slope in the valley of a little brook which had 

 cut its way under the snow banks to the sea. The hard snow banks 

 were preferable to the soft, muddy, and Stony hillsides above, where 

 our toilsome ascent was gladdened by the sight of the pure white 

 Mackay snowflakes flitting about among the rocks and by the pro- 

 fusion of beautiful flowers in bloom on the grassy slopes. The sud- 



