Brewster.] 410 [October 3, 



are said to be fast diminishing. This is due not so much to per- 

 seeution (for the bait seekers slaughter Gannets chiefly, and most 

 of the Murres breed where their eggs are inaccessible) as to the 

 recent introduction of a cannon which is tired every half hour in 

 foggy weather. At each discharge the frightened Murres fly 

 from the rock in clouds, nearly every sitting bird taking its egg 

 into the air between its thighs and dropping it after flying a few 

 yards. This was repeatedly observed during our visit and more 

 than once a perfect shower of eggs fell into the water around our 

 boat. So seriously had the Murres suffered from this cause that 

 many of the ledges on the side of the rock where the gun was 

 fired had been swept almost clear of eggs. The Gannets and Kit- 

 ti wakes did not seem to be similarly startled, and from their dif- 

 ferent manner of sitting no accident results to the eggs even if 

 they take wing suddenly. 



Of the colony at Kerroquet Island I can say little. When we 

 first saw the place the water was covered with Murres, and hun- 

 dreds were sitting on their eggs along the ledges of the western 

 end of the island. But a week later when we landed there the 

 colony had been practically annihilated by Indians, and the few 

 birds remaining were so shy that I could not get near any of them. 

 All that 1 saw, however, seemed to belong to the present species. 



In lboT Verriil found Murres breeding in large numbers at the 

 eastern end of Anticosti but we saw none there, although Kazor- 

 billed Auks were numerous at Wreck Bay. 



90. Lomvia ringvia, Brunn. — Kinged Guillemot. 



The Kinged Guillemot was met with only at Bird Kocks where 

 we saw just six individuals. Two of these were single birds shot 

 while flying in towards the rock; two others, a mated pair, were 

 sitting side by side on one of the lower ledges where both were 

 killed by one discharge ; and the remaining two, also paired, bc- 

 cu]3ied a narrow shelf about half-way up the cliff at a point where 

 the bucket in which our party was hoisted passed so near them 

 that I could almost touch the sitting female. 



Although this limited experience comprises my personal know- 

 ledge of the bird in life 1 cannot help considering it a valid 

 species. If, as has been so generally maintained, it is simply an 

 exceptional or dichromatic condition of L. troile, it is difficult to 

 account for the fact that two or three ringed individuals had se- 



