The Pigeon Guillemot 



TAKING A SUN BATH 



Taken in Washington 



Photo by the A uthor 



eggs stored away in cave or burrow. If the rock is a large one, it may 

 boast a colony of California Murres, and a grassy stretch where Beal 

 Petrels and Cassin Auklets nest. But whatever the character of the 

 remaining population, the lower levels of the islets will boast of at least 

 a few pairs of Pigeon Guillemots. 



x"\s one clambers over the rough sides of the rookery, these birds 

 tumble out just ahead like sleepy children, and plunge with all speed into 

 the nearest water, by way of getting their wits collected. After a re- 

 freshing dive, they join in turn the growing company of their fellows, 

 who bob and hiss from beyond the kelp line. 



If partially reassured the bird realights upon an exposed surface of 

 the rock, and opens a carmine mouth of inquiry. Others join him, and 

 soon your motives are being discussed by a whining company of these won- 

 dering wights. Their only note is a cross between a hiss and a whine, and 

 it has no great power; but a large company of these birds can produce a 

 mild chorus, which takes its place among those primal sea sounds which 

 haunt the sympathetic soul forever after. It blends curiously with the 

 voices of "the dry, pied things which be in the hueless mosses under the 

 sea," and which are set a-murmuring when the tide runs out. 



These Guillemots are not ungraceful while at rest, and it goes without 

 saying that they exhibit the perfection of motion in the water; but on 

 land they move about with an awkward shuffling gait, and in their shorter 

 flights about the rocks they thrust out their great red feet cornerwise. 

 and almost excite derision for their awkwardness. 



They are, in the main, peaceable folk, and in the larger colonies are 



H79 



