336 
afternoon sun, where the jutting ledges per- 
mitted one easily to descend a short distance, 
I soon found myself among groups of puf- 
fins, razorbills, and murres, who, in view of 
the persecution to which they have so long 
been subjected, were remarkably tame. At 
a distance of twenty feet they permitted me 
to go through the operations of focusing 
under a dark cloth, inserting the plate- 
holder, etc., without showing marked signs 
THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. 
perfect balance between gravity and air- 
pressure. 
As the birds gathered about in rows and 
groups on the border of the cliff, its ledges 
and projections, I seemed almost to be on 
speaking terms with them; and so unusual 
and pleasing was the experience of having 
birds apparently admit you at once to the 
inner circles of their society, that I hesitated 
to alarm them by moving. But as yet I had 
seen only a fragment of 
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the rock. Climbing, 
therefore, from ledge to 
ledge, I reached a corner 
where an abrupt turn ex- 
posed a great expanse of 
perpendicular wall so in- 
accessible to man that it 
has become a favorite 
nesting-site. Here 
were gathered gan- 
nets, murres, 
razorbills, and 
kittiwakes, 
distributed 
of fear. In 
fact, I was 
at times vigor- 
ously scolded by 
some murre parent, 
who would waddle to- 
ward me, and, bobbing 
her head, utter a series 
of protesting murres, in a 
tone so surprisingly like 
that of a bass-voiced man 
that often I expected a 
larger biped to appear. 
Tamer even than the 
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murres were the puffins— 
paroquets, the French 
Canadians call them; and 
one has only to see the bird in life to ap- 
preciate the applicability of the name. It is 
not alone their appearance, but also their 
actions, which suggest the parrot. Unlike 
the murres and razorbills, they do not rest 
on the whole foot,—that is, on the so-called 
tarsus as well as on the toes,—but stand 
quite erect on the toes alone, and run about 
with the characteristic pattering steps of 
parrots. When the wind blew fresh from 
the sea, they faced it, hovering a foot or two 
above the rocks on outstretched, motionless 
wings, and retaining for several seconds this 
CATCHING RAZORBILLS, 
DRAWN By C. M. RELYEA. 
AND REMOVING THE BIRD FROM THE NET. 
singly or in rows, according to the na- 
ture of the shelves and ledges on which 
they were nesting, the gannets taking the 
widest the murres and kittiwakes the nar- 
rowest ledges, while the razorbills sought 
the more sheltered crevices. 
What noise and apparent confusion were 
here! A never-ceasing chorus, in which the 
loud, grating gor-r-r-ok, gor-r-r-ok of the 
gannets predominated, while the singularly 
human call of the murres and the hoarse note 
of the razorbills formed an accompaniment. 
Occasionally the kittiwakes found cause for 
