THE MTTKRES 
303 
game. There are dozens of birds there which 
we would gladly introduce to the reader, but 
owing to uncontrollable limitations, only the 
most interesting examples can be accorded 
space. 
Of all arctic and northern sea-birds, the 
California Murre 1 (pronounced mur) deserves 
to be mentioned first, for the reason that it is 
and ever has been most in the public eye. This 
is really a subspecies of the Common Murre 2 
of the North Atlantic, which nests on Bird 
Rocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and some- 
times comes as far south as Massachusetts. 
There is another North Atlantic species, called 
Brunnich’s Murre , 3 also nesting on Bird Rocks, 
which occasionally strays down to Long Island. 
Both the Atlantic species are black above, and 
white underneath. 
The California Murre is the bird which once 
nested on the Farallone Islands, about thirty- 
five miles west of San Francisco, in countless 
thousands, and furnished between 1880 and 
1890, according to Mr. W. E. Bryant, from 
180,000 to 228,000 eggs per annum to the San 
Francisco market. Like true Americans, the 
eggers always endeavored to make “a clean 
sweep,” regardless of the future of the rookery, 
and under their ministrations the Murres rap- 
idly declined in number. 
Finally an appeal was made to the United 
States Light-House Board. The admirable rec- 
ord of that body in the preservation of wild life 
was sustained by an order which at once put 
a stop to all egg-gathering on the Farallones. 
It has already been noted in the chapter on 
seals and sea-lions that the only localities on 
the California coast where sea-lions are now 
safe from annihilation are the light-house reser- 
vations, the most important of which are the 
Farallones. 
The following vivid pen-picture of the Cali- 
fornia Murre at home, on Hall Island, Bering 
Sea, Alaska, is from the pen of Mr. John Bur- 
roughs (Harriman Alaska Expedition, p. 109) : 
“The first thing that attracted our attention 
was the Murres — ‘ urries ’ the Aleuts call them — 
about their rookeries on the cliffs. Their num- 
bers darkened the air. As we approached, 
the faces of the rocks seemed paved with them, 
1 V'ri-a tro'i-le californica. 2 U. troile. 
3 U. lom'vi-a. 
with a sprinkling of gulls, puffins, black cor- 
morants and auklets. 
“On landing at a break in the cliffs where 
a little creek came down to the sea, our first 
impulse was to walk along the brink and look 
down upon the Murres, and see them swarm 
out beneath our feet. On the discharge of a 
gun, the air would be black with them, while 
the cliffs apparently remained as populous as 
ever. They sat on little shelves, or niches, with 
their black backs to the sea, each bird covering 
one egg with its tail-feathers. In places one 
could have reached down and seized them by 
the neck, they were so tame and so near the 
top of the rocks. I believe one of our party 
did actually thus procure a specimen. It was 
a strange spectacle, and we lingered long looking 
upon it. To behold sea-fowls like flies, in un- 
counted millions, was a new experience. 
“Everywhere in Bering Sea the Murres swarm 
like vermin. It seems as if there was a Murre 
to every square yard of surface. They were 
flying about over the ship, or flapping over the 
water away from her front at all times. I 
noticed that they could not get up from the 
water except against the wind; the wind lifted 
them as it does a kite. With the wind, or in 
a calm, they skimmed along on the surface, 
their heads bent forward, their wings beating 
the water impatiently. Unable to rise, they 
would glance behind them in a frightened 
manner, then plunge beneath the waves until 
they thought the danger had passed. Their 
tails are so short that in flying their two red 
feet stretched behind them to do the duty of a 
tail.” 
Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey says that 
“When incubating, one bird stays on the nest 
during the day, and the other during the night, 
and when the exchange is made a great com- 
motion ensues, the air being filled with quar- 
relling. screaming masses of bird-life.” (“ Hand- 
book,” p. 17.) 
In its breeding plumage, the California 
Murre has a jet-black head and neck, the back 
is dull black, or slate color, and the under parts 
are white. In winter the sides of the head and 
throat are white. The range of the species is 
from California to Hall Island, Bering Sea. 
The Puffins are the clowns of the bird-world. 
Without exception, they are the drollest-looking 
