180 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
them, and so drives them into a heap, and thus has an opportunity of snatching 
here one and there another, as it finds it convenient to swallow them, and if 
any one pushes out to escape, it falls the first prey of the devourer.” 
The murre also feeds on shrimps and other crustaceans, marine in- 
sects, and other soft-bodied animals which it finds in the sea. Mor- 
ris (1903) says that it feeds “on sprats, young herrings, anchovies, 
sardines, and other fish, mollusca, testacea, and sea insects.” 
Behavior.—The murre’s flight is swift, direct, strong, and pro- 
tracted, accomplished by steady, rapid wing beats. When traveling 
long distances it flies in flocks high in the air, but when moving about 
near its feeding or breeding grounds it flies close to the water with 
frequent turnings from side to side. It is so heavy bodied and small 
winged that it can not rise off the water without pattering along the 
surface. In flying from a cliff, it glides rapidly downward at a 
steep angle, sweeping ina long curve outward and into a level course. 
Its momentum is so great in proportion to its wing area that, in 
alighting on a ledge, it has to approach it in a long upward curve 
and check its speed by flattening its body, spreading its feet and 
“back peddling” vigorously with its wings; even then it alights 
far from gracefully. I found that with practice, one could learn to 
distinguish the common murre in flight from either the razor-billed 
auk or the Brinnich’s murre, even at a considerable distance. The 
razorbill is the shortest and most compact; the common murre is the 
longest and slenderest and the Brimnich’s murre is intermediate 
between the other two in that respect. The common murre usually 
carries its head and neck well stretched out and somewhat below 
the level of its body, whereas Briinnich’s carries its shorter neck 
nearly straight and the razorbill still more so. 
In diving the murre flops under with its wings half spread, 
using both wings and feet, or perhaps only the wings, in the rapid 
subaqueous flight necessary to capture the small fish on which it 
feeds. Mr. Edmund Selous (1905) writes: 
Whilst watching the guillemots (common murres) on the ledges, one of them 
flew down into the sea, just below, which was like a great, clear basin, and thus 
gave me the first opportunity I have yet had of seeing a guillemot under 
water. It progressed, like the razorbill and puffin, by repeated strokes of its 
wings, which were not, however, outspread as in flight, but held as they are 
when closed, parallel, that is to say, roughly speaking, with the sides, from 
which they were moved outward, and then back with a flap-like motion, as 
though attached to them all along. Thus the flight through the water is man- 
aged in a very different way from the flight through the air. 
Although much of the murre’s food is obtainable near the surface 
or. at moderate depths, it must occasionally dive to considerable 
depths, for Mr. J. H. Gurney (1918) states that Mr. William Leckie 
has “seen guillemots brought up in nets which were set at a depth 
