May, 1904 I 
THE CONDOR 
63 
JV 
shipped in 1892." This amount was increased to 25,000 dozen in 1887, I was in- 
formed by the head keeper, which was the largest picking for several years past. 
In 1896 Mr. Leverett M. Loomis visited the island, and the egg picking had fallen 
to 7645 dozen.* From this it is apparent a great decrease in the laying of the 
murres had taken place on South Farallone, and I was prepared to note a corres- 
ponding change in the abundance of murres, as well as a decrease in gulls and 
cormorants. 
June 2, 1903, at 2:30 p. m. found me on the wet deck of the staunch little tug 
“Voltaire,” which rolled like a tub as we lay in Fisherman’s Bay, facing the old 
familiar points, but not the endless multitude of sea-fowl I had seen in 1887 swarm- 
ing from the great colonies on Sugar Loaf, Arch Rock, and other places. A walk 
among the many breeding spots of the southern portions of the island showed an 
entire absence of birds, and a tramp over to West End on the following day 
showed similar conditions in many places. Of one rookery, in particular, of 
Brandt cormorants {P. penicillatus) where I often spent hours among the nests, 
nothing remained. This cormorant community w'as the largest single colony on 
the island, and the least disturbed of any, being on Indian Head, on a high fiat 
a Overland Monthly, Sept. 1892, p. 241. 
h California Water Jiird.s, III, p. 357. 
