LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 173 
summer homes to rear their young. Most conspicuous, at a distance, 
were the broad white bands of nesting gannets on the wider ledges; 
hovering above and about the rock was a restless cloud of snowy 
kittiwakes, while a steady stream of birds from the varied throng 
flowed constantly around it. Between the bands of gannets we could 
see, as we drew near, row upon row of smaller, black birds standing 
in seried ranks, shoulder to shoulder, on the narrow ledges scattered 
over the face of the cliff. These were the murres and the Brin- 
nich’s murres standing on or near their eggs in their customary 
attitude, facing the cliff and with their backs to the seas the report 
of a gun brought a sudden change, as they faced about showing their 
white breasts and began pouring off the rock in hundreds to circle 
about it in a bewildering maze, or plunging downwards to the sea 
to settle in the water and watch proceedings. 
Bird Rock is now the main stronghold of this and several other 
species south of the coast of Labrador, where once these seabirds bred 
in such profusion. The following quotation from Audubon’s (1840) 
graphic pen will give some idea of the abundance of this species 
there in his time: 
Not far from Great Macatina Harbor lie the Murre Rocks, consisting of 
several low islands, destitute of vegetation, and not rising high from the 
waters. There thousands of guillemots annually assemble in the beginning 
of May to deposit each its single egg and raise its young. As you approach 
these islands the air becomes darkened with the multitudes of birds that fly 
about; every square foot of the ground seems to be occupied by a guillemot 
planted erect, as it were, on the granite rock, but carefully warming its cher- 
ished egg. All look toward the south,.and if you are fronting them, the snowy 
white of their bodies produces a very remarkable effect, for the birds at some 
distance look as if they were destitute of head, so much does that part assimi- 
late with the dark hue of the rocks on which they stand. On the other hand, 
if you approach them in the rear, the isle appears as if covered with a black 
pall. 
On one occasion, whilst at anchor at Great Macatina, one of our boats was 
sent for eggs. The sailors had 8 miles to pull before reaching the Murre 
Islands, and yet ere many hours had elapsed the boat was again alongside, 
loaded to a few inches of the gunwale with 2,500 eggs. Many of them, how- 
ever, being addled, were thrown overboard. The order given to the tars had 
been to bring only a few dozens, but, as they said, they had forgotten. 
Mr. William Brewster (1883), when he visited this region in 1881, 
found the murres still breeding on Parroquet Island near Mingan, of 
which he writes: 
When we first saw the place the water was covered with murges, and hun- 
dreds were sitting on their eggs along the ledges of the western end of the island. 
But a week later, when we landed there, the colony had been practically anni- 
hilated by Indians, and the few birds remaining were so shy that I could not 
get near any of them. All that I saw, however, seemed to belong to the present 
species, 
