124 
THE CONDOR 
| Vo i,. VII 
a slippery place to the next colony. At this 
point, there was a projecting knob, where 
one could look straight over the drop for a 
hundred and fifty feet, and around which 
one had to edge his way. A piece above 
that was a portion of the rock that was 
broken and crumbling, up which we had to 
scramble, climbing from the nest of one cor- 
morant to another, till w'e reached the slope, 
and then clamber on up to the pinnacle of 
the rock where we could get our first concep- 
tion of w hat the island really was. 
The different nests that we found on these 
rocks may be divided into three classes: the 
grass nests, burrow' nests, and nests that were 
no nests at all. Under the first group would 
come the western gull ( Larus occidcntalis) 
and three kinds of cormorants, Brandt, 
Baird and the Farallone (Pha/acrocorax 
penicillatus , Ph. pelagicus resplendens , Pit. 
dilophus albociliatus). In the second class 
would come the tufted puffin {Lund a cirr kata'), 
Kaeding petrel ( Oceanodroma kaedingi), and 
the forked-tail petrel {Oceanodroma furcata). 
Those having no nests at all would be the 
California murre ( Uria troile californica ) and 
the pigeon guillemot {Cepphus columbd). Of 
the last bird, we only found a few' pairs nest- 
ing on the rock. The forked-tailed petrels 
were rather rare on the rock, where we 
camped, but a little more common -on the 
middle rock where they nested right in 
among the Kaeding petrel, but not so com- 
mon. There were also a few' pairs of black 
oyster-catchers {Hcnnatopus bachmani) nest- 
ing among the ledges. There w'ere no ashy 
petrels or Cassin auklets as on the Farallones. 
One of the prettiest sights about the rock 
was the gulls that filled the air like so many 
feathered snow' flakes. Their immaculate 
white bodies and soft, pearl-grey wings, 
tipped with black, are as catching as music 
strains wafted over the river. 1 liked to 
watch them, because they w'ere masters of 
the air. There was a constant adjustment of 
the wdngs to meet every air current that 
swept the rock, but in a steady breeze the 
movement w r as too slight to see, and 
they hung as motionless as if painted in the 
blue. They tacked straight into the teeth 
of the wind. 1 saw one retain a perfect 
GULLS IN FLIGHT 
