118 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVI 
During my recent expedition, I spent the time between the first and mid- 
dle of May cruising in Chatham Strait, Icy Strait and Glacier Bay. Among 
other siiecimens, ive collected quite a few Marbled Murrelets and also several 
Kittlitz Murrelets. It was the height of the breeding season of these two spe- 
cies, for we found in every specimen fully or partly formed eggs, most of 
which, however, were broken in the collecting. However, I preserved, of the 
Kittlitz Murrelet, one fully formed and colored egg, besides several broken 
ones. 
I had no previous data or reference with me other than “North American 
Birds’ Eggs”, by Chester A. Reed, and this gives on page 16 the data of Capt. 
Tilson : ‘ ‘ Kittlitz Murrelet — a pure white egg found in a hollow under a bunch 
of rank matted grass on Sanak Island, June 25, 1899.” 
I am sending you the broken egg, the whole egg, and both parent birds 
from whose oviducts they were taken, so you may properly descrilie and meas- 
ure them for yourself. I have long doubted the authenticity of the Tilson 
data, and it seems strange to me that the Kittlitz Murrelet, which so closely 
resembles the Marbled, should lay such widely different eggs. 
On June 5, while lying at anchor off Pavloff Bay, Alaska Peninsula, a 
trapper and miner came aboard, who saw me preparing skins of the Kittlitz 
and Marbled murrelets. He recognized the Kittlitz immediately, and said it 
was strange that a water bird should lay its egg far inland, high on the moun- 
tain sides, in the snoAV. Upon closer questioning he said he meant that the egg 
was laid, not on the snoAV, but far above timber line on the mountain, in bare 
spots, amid the snow. In the sixteen years he had been there he had found but 
Iavo eggs, but he remembered well the eggs and bird. 1 had him describe the 
egg carefully before I shoAved him the one I possessed, and it tallied AAuth his 
description. 
On June 6, I AAms hunting broAvn bear for the Carnegie Museum, in com- 
pany Avith this man, and Avhile crossing a high divide, a Kittlitz Murrelet flcAv 
past us. “There is your bird”, called the trapper immediately; “it has a nest 
here someAvhere”. On June 10, I saAV Avith my glasses a she-bear and tAvo cubs 
far up in the snoAV of Mount Pavloff. To reach them, I had to climb several 
miles inside the snoAV line, Avith only here and there a leAv bare spots to give 
me a much desired Avalking ground, Avhen close to my feet rose a Kittlitz Mur- 
relet. There on the bare laAm, Avithout even the pretension of a holloAv, lay 
a single egg. 
Eight years ago, Avhen I shot my first Kittlitz Murrelet in the ice pack 
of Bering Sea, an Eskimo looking at the bird said, “Him lay egg way up in 
snoAV on mountain”. I ridiculed the idea then, of this bird laying its egg in 
Ihe snoAV far from the sea on the mountain-side, but, keeping a constant look- 
out, expected to find its breeding place on the rocky islands of Alaska or 
Siberia, perhaps in company Avith the auks and murres. Noav, hoAvever, I 
found the Eskimo’s Avords corroborated, and the Murrelet ’s solitary egg laid 
in just such a strange place as he described. I enclose a photograph marking 
tlie spot AAdiere I found it, and this egg also. 
Lancaster, Massachusetts, February g, 1 Q 14 . 
