The California Murre 



air, while the females remain huddled 

 together, shifting uneasily upon their 

 eggs, or backing away from the 

 nearest ones, uttering apprehensive 

 hows. All the birds in turn bow ex- 

 travagantly, using only their heads 

 and sinuous necks, and so frequently 

 that a colony viewed from above 

 looks something like a grain field 

 under a breeze. 



If the intruder does not press 

 his advantage too hotly, those that 

 have retreated from their eggs make 

 shuffling feints at return, aided oc- 

 casionally by their wings. Those 

 that have found their eggs bend low 

 to inspect them, or use the bill to 

 assist in thrusting them between 

 their legs. Others pause now and 

 then to yawn or to stretch the wings, 

 beating them rapidly three or four 

 times before refolding. This is when 

 the birdman seats himself on the 

 white-washed ledge, Turk-fashion, 

 places the camera in his lap and 

 begins to shuffle forward like a leg- 

 less beggar, "snapping" momentarily. 

 The strain of approaching danger 

 begins to tell on the Murrine nerve ; 

 but when the last mother has fled, 



we have before us such a varied assortment of eggs that regret is lost in 

 wonder. 



Murres' eggs are the Majolica ware of ever)' bird-egg collection. In 

 ground-color varying from pure white and delicate grays to beryl-green or 

 even sea-green, they are speckled, splattered, blotched, and daubed with 

 browns and blacks of a hundred shades. The more lightly marked speci- 

 mens may have nothing by way of ornamentation beyond faint vermicula- 

 tions of pale oil-green and tawny olive, or else tiny irruptions of sordid 

 lavender and Indian purple; but others may be scrawled like a blackbird's 

 egg with purplish blacks, or buried, like a hawk's, in a smudge of chestnut- 

 rufous. One specimen in the M. C. O. collection exhibits a five-rayed 

 rosette of carob-brown on a whitish ground. Another bears a maze of 



Taken on Carroll Islet, off the coast of Washington 

 EXPOSED LEDGES 



Photo by the A ulhor 



1497 



