20 NE8TS AND EG&8 OF 



in the latter part' of the season are perceptibly smaller. Mr. C. Barlow also states 

 that this species greatly exceeds in numbers any of the birds inhabiting the Faral- 

 lon; they nest on the cliffs in rookeries, usually near the summits of the peaks. 

 For years their eggs have been collected for the San Francisco markets where they 

 are used by bakeries in the manufacture of all kinds of pastry.* According to Mr. 

 Bryant the number of eggs marketed for the last few years has averaged from one 

 hundred and eighty thousand to' two hundred and twenty-eight thousand. In 1886 

 two men who were left on Sugar Loaf, collected one hundred and eight thousand 

 eggs. The Western Gull, Larus occidentalis, is another enemy of this Murre; it 

 carries off and devours both eggs and young. So it would seem that the ^hances 

 for the Murre to rear its young and launch them into the deep, blue sea, where they i 

 can take care of themselves, are not very favorable, yet these birds are found in 

 countless numbers on the islands of the Pacific coast. Mr. Bryant, in his excellent 

 paper.t says: "The gulls pick a Murre's egg up bodily and carry it away in their ca- 

 pacious mouth, but do not stick their bill into it to get" hold, as is stated by some 

 writers, whose observations must have referred to the eggs already broken by the 

 gulls or eggers." This species lays a single pear-shaped egg on the bare rock, often 

 on the narrow shelves of cliffs, where the bird has just room enough to sit, and if un- 

 molested will rear two or three young in a season. Like the eggs of the last 

 species, they show a wonderful diversity of color-and markings; the ground color is 

 white, buff, greenish of several 9hades, yellowish, and cinnamon. They are either 

 unspotted or blotched or streaked with zigzag markings of brbwn and black. They 

 measure from 3.50 to 354 long by 1.90 to 2.05 broad; occasionally as small as 2.05 In 

 length by 1.45 in breadth. Mr. H. A. Taylor says: "The California Murre, the repre- 

 sentative birds of the islands, lay their colored, pear-shaped eggs on bare rock on the 

 steepest crags, in caves and almost everywhere, save on the few, low flats near the 

 shore, where many Western Gulls, choose to build their nests of coarse Farallon 

 weeds, and in the hollow spaces under certain boulders the Pigeon Guillemot lays her 

 two eggs."t 



31. BRTTITNICH'S MURBE. Vria lomvia (Linn.) Geog. Dist.— Coasts and 

 islands of the North Atlantic and Eastern Arctic Ocean, south on the Atlanti,c coast 

 of North America to New Jersey. Breeding from the Gulf of St. Lawrence north- 

 ward. 



This species has the same general habits and characteristics as the common 

 Murre, Vria troile. Its distribution in the breeding season is about the same, and 

 the eggs are indistinguishable. It is an abundant bird on the islands of the North 

 Atlantic. We can now, for the first time, add this bird to the avifauna of Ohio. A 

 mounted specimen before me, was captured alive by Mr. R. T. Stewart in a field near 

 Fair Haven, Preble county, Ohio, December 19th, 1896. The bird was kindly identi- 

 tified for me by Mr. Charles W. Richmond, Assistant Curator of Birds in the National 

 Museum. He states that a wave of. these birds was scattered, by a storm which oc- 

 curred about the above date and Prof.. E. L. Moseley reports two specimens being 

 shot at Put-In-Bay and two at Sandusky on December 19th. 



310. PALLAS'S MURBB. Vria lomvia arra (Pall,) Geog. Dist.— Coast and 

 Islands of the North Pacific and Western Arctic Ocean. 



The great "egg bird" of the North Pacific, swarming at its breeding places on the 

 rocky islands and shores in ipyrlads. Its habits and nesting are the same as thos(i 

 of the foregoing, the eggs averaging larger, 3.21x2.01. 



* The Museum, I, p. 38. 



t Birds and Eggs from the Farallon Isleilds. 



t "A Trip to the Farallons" in The Nldologist, Vol. I, pp. 17-19. 



