14 The Bird Rock Group. 
the writer visited the Rock in July, 1898, and procured for the 
American Museum of Natural History the material and photo- 
graphs which made possible the preparation of this group. 
It is quite as difficult to land on Bird Rock to-day as it was in 
Audubon’s time, but good fortune brought us to the spot during 
calm weather, and the boat in which the light-keeper met our 
schooner was readily beached on the hand’s-breadth of shore 
constituting the only port of entry. Once landed, however, the 
top is now easily reached in a small crate which is hoisted by 
means of a crane and windlass, operated by the keeper of the 
lighthouse. The experience of passing so near nesting Murres 
and Kittiwakes that they may almost be touched is not the least 
interesting part of a journey through space which it is believed 
most visitors to the Rock will find possessed of more or less 
novelty. Alighting on the grassy summit of the Rock, one sees 
that it contains, in addition to the light- and bomb-houses, a 
small collection of buildings for the storage of supplies which are 
brought only twice each year, and for the accommodation of the 
keeper, his family, and three assistants. With the exception of 
a few Puffins and Petrels, which live in burrows, no birds now 
nest on top of the Rock, but they crowd the jutting ledges or 
eroded shelves of the precipitous faces of the island. In places 
one can easily clamber down to these ledges and there he will be 
surrounded by curious groups of sea-fowl, some fearlessly stand- 
ing, while others whir] by in an endless procession. 
In view of the years of persecution to which these birds have 
been subjected, they are still remarkably tame, and, to a bird- 
lover, it is an especially grateful experience to be at once received 
into their ranks. No one, indeed, who has not had the experience 
can imagine the peculiar sensations which possess the naturalist 
when, for the first time, he visits a bird island where essentially 
primeval conditions prevail, and where the birds are so abundant 
and so unsuspicious that one seems to have reached the heart of 
the bird world and found existing there the ideal relation between 
man and the lower animals. 
THe BIRDS OF THE ROCK. 
Murres (Uria lomvia et Uria troile). The Murres, together 
with the Razor-billed Auk and the Puffin, are members of the 
