184 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
twenties, flew out, or by sprawling and flapping over the rocks and into the 
foaming surf, thus gained the open sea. Some were terribly thrown about 
in the breakers but apparently received little injury. On our entrance the 
main body took flight, with a mighty roar of wings, and so close did they 
fill the cave that it behooved us to get behind bowlders to prevent being 
struck by them. Many birds still remained in the cave, retreating deep into 
the branching recesses or, sheeplike, huddled into the corners, where they 
could be picked up by the hand. The multitudes which took wing would 
wait, scattered over the water about a quarter of a mile from shore, until 
the commotion was over and would then come trooping back to the cave. 
Messrs. Finley and Bohlman in various illustrated articles and 
lectures have made famous the great breeding colonies of California 
murres on the Three Arch Rocks, off the coast of Oregon. In these 
wonderful rookeries the population is fully as dense as on the Faral- 
lones, though fewer naturalists have seen them. Mr. Finley (1905) 
has given us an interesting account of the behavior of the murres 
in their efforts to find their own eggs, as follows: 
When a murre arrived from the fishing grounds, he lit on the outer edge of 
the table, where he looked about after two or three elaborate bows. Then, 
like a man in a Fourth of July crowd, he looked for an opening in the dense 
front ranks. Seeing none, he boldly squeezed in, pushing and shoving to right 
and left. The neighbors resented such behavior and pecked at the new arrival 
with their long, sharp bills, but on he pressed, amid much opposition and com- 
plaint, until he reached his wife. They changed places, and he took up his 
vigil on the egg. The wife, upon leaving the rookery, instead of taking flight 
from where she stood, went through the former proceeding, although in reverse 
order, much to the disgust of the neighbors. They made a vigorous protest, 
and sped the departing sister with a fusillade of blows, until she arrived at 
the edge of the ledge, where she dropped off into space. Others were coming 
and going and kept up an interesting performance for the onlooker from above. 
Then we went down and scared all the birds from the ledge and watched 
them return. Almost before we got back into position the first one pitched 
awkwardly in and lit on the edge. She sat for a little bit clucking and cran- 
ing her neck. Then she hobbled up the rock past two eggs, bowing and look- 
ing around. On she went in her straddling gait, stopping and cocking her head 
on one side till I saw her pass eight or nine eggs. Finally she poked an egg 
gently with her bill, looked it over, and tucked it under her leg. By that time 
the ledge was half full of birds, all cackling, pecking at each other, and shuffling 
about looking among the eggs. It took almost half an hour for life in the 
colony to drop back to its normal stage. 
My own experience with the nesting habits of the California murre 
was gained on the bird islands of Bering Sea. Among the vast 
hordes of Pallas’s murres, which we found breeding on the rocky 
pinnacles of Bogoslof Island on July 4, 1911, we saw a few scattering 
pairs of California murres and on the flat top of the high, rounded 
cliff at the west end of the island, the sides of which were covered 
with Pallas’s murres, we found several small compact colonies of 
California murres sitting on their eggs in close bunches of 15 or 
20 pairs. No other breeding colonies were found among the Aleutian 
