IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



this possibility, for hybridization among water- 

 fowl is not rare. The ringed murre is certainly 

 a marked bird. I retain a mental image of a 

 group of fifteen or twenty murres standing 

 huddled together, all of whom were ringed. 



William the Pirate was anxious I should 

 fire my gun and mark the effect on the birds, 

 but this I refused to do, although I allowed 

 him to catch a couple of murres — one of them 

 ringed — for me for specimens and thus satisfy 

 his lust for blood. We counted a hundred 

 murres' eggs in a space ten feet square and 

 calculated there were about two thousand 

 murres, and, as there were six hundred cor- 

 morants' nests, about twelve hundred adult 

 cormorants in the colony. When we returned 

 to the schooner we first became aware of the 

 curious noises made by the murres as they 

 flew by us with a rattling ah-ah-ah. They col- 

 lected in groups on the water and their com- 

 bined voices produced a long-drawn, plain- 

 tive, moaning wail. At times it was a sharp 

 snarl,- at times it resembled the plaintive baa 

 of a forlorn lamb. This bird resembles in gen- 

 eral the razor-billed auk, but can be distin- 

 guished from the auk by its long, slender bill 

 116 



