LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 179 
ing his. collections, he finds “only one specimen, which, however, is 
very interesting, it being a young bird in its first winter plumage, 
thus proving that the ring is not peculiar to old birds, as had been 
supposed.” 
Mr. William Brewster (1883), Dr. Louis B. Bishop (1889), and 
Mr. C. J. Maynard (1896) all reported this bird in mated pairs on 
Bird Rock, and suggested that it be entitled to specific rank. On my 
visit to Bird Rock in 1915, 11 ringed murres were noted in a group 
by themselves. Doctor Townsend, the same season, saw about 15 
together in one place, on the south coast of Labrador, all belonging 
to this form. Mr. Brewster added the following comment: 
If, as has been so generally maintained, it is simply an exceptional or dichro- 
matic condition of L. troile, it is difficult to account for the fact that two or 
three ringed individuals had selected mates of their own style among so many 
thousands of the common kind, for it is well known that with other birds 
addicted to dichromatism or great variability, the different varieties are quite 
as apt to be found paired with their opposite extremes as with individuals of 
similar coloring. 
Mr. William Palmer (1890) noticed in a specimen of this form, 
collected at Bird Rock, that its feet “were much smaller and less 
strongly colored” than those of the common murre. And finally no 
such phase occurs in the California murre, the Pacific subspecies. 
On the other hand, Mr. Howard Saunders, in editing Yarrell’s 
British Birds (1871), states that, on the Farne Islands, he “ observed 
several birds with well-developed eye rings and streaks, sitting on 
their eggs, whilst others exhibited gradations from the above to the 
usual furrow, with only a few white feathers at its junction with the 
eye.” Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1907) quotes Mr. S. H. C. Miiller 
as saying that it “is certainly only a variety of Uria troile. I have 
been an eyewitness that a ringed and a common guillemot have paired 
themselves together and, besides, have seen a vingvia feed a young 
one which a éroile had under its wing.” With the above evidence 
before him I shall let the reader bring in his own verdict. 
Food.—The food of the murre consists largely of lant, capelin, and 
other small fishes or the fry of larger species, which it pursues and 
catches under water. Morris (1903) quotes the following account, 
to show the apparent intelligence displayed by the murre in the pur- 
suit of its prey: 
Mr. Couch observes of the guillemot, in his Illustrations of Instinct, “I have 
watched with much interest the proceedings of this bird when capturing the 
stragglers of a school of young mullets, and the admirable skill with which 
their dispersion was prevented until a full meal had been secured. It is the 
nature of this bird, as well as of most of those birds which habitually dive to 
take their prey, to perform all their evolutions under water with the aid of 
their wings; but instead of dashing at once into the midst of the terrified group 
of small fry, by which only a few would be captured, it passes round and round 
55916—19—Bull. 107-13 
