66 
THK CONDOR 
VoL. VI 
surprised individuals never met on the collecting field. The big brown water}" 
eyes looked up as much as to say, “You’ve caught me in the act; what are you 
going to do about it?’’ When I attempted to pat its head, it uttered a low ‘eggy’ 
yelp, and ambled off to the water’s edge. 
(11) The murres had a large rookery on the ridge that runs out from Tower 
Hill, facing the old stone hou.se (built in 1855) of the first light keeper on the is- 
land. This colony has all but disappeared. 
(12) This location contained the largest Farallone cormorant rookery of the 
island (just below the light-tower doorway and facing to north of Shubrick Pt.). 
The birds have all left this portion of the island. The accompanying halftone, 
from a photograph taken in 1887 shows this rookery as it then appeared. This 
picture was the first ever taken of these cormorants. 
( 13) In a sort of swale just above North I.anding the Western gulls had a 
ROOKERY OF FARALLONE CORMORANTS IN 1887 
small colony consisting of twenty or thirty nests. These have all disappeared. 
(14) V\gQon ^mWemot (Cepp/iKS cohiuibcr'). This was and still is the most 
abundant colony of these birds on the island. The locality affords plenty of piled- 
up loose rocks, where the sea pigeons (as they are called) can lay the two bluish- 
gray eggs in a natural hollow. 
(15 and 16) Great Murre Cave and Shubrick Point still possess the abund- 
ance of birds which characterized them in 1887. The view here shown of Great 
Murre Cave can give but a slight impression of this great cavern of sea-fowl life. 
(17) A colony of western gulls and Farallone cormorants was located on a 
spur or slight ridge jutting out from a bend of the trail near summit of the Light 
Tower. This ridge is now bare of any life. The gulls have also disappeared from 
flat near east landing (18). 
