BIRD ROCK. O37 
excitement, and hun- 
dreds of birds would 
swoop downward from 
their nests, and circling 
about, call their rapidly, 
distinctly enunciated, 
ringing kit-ti-wake, kit- 
ti-wake. 
In addition to the 
great number of birds 
on the rock, an endless 
procession of gannets, 
puffins, murres, and ra- 
zorbills circled about it. 
Unconsciously one ex- 
pected a pause in this 
whirling throng of birds; 
but although its num- 
bers fluctuated, birds 
were ever passing, never 
flying over the rock, but always around it. 
The schooner had dropped anchor near the 
rock, but the wind increasing in strength, 
Captain Taker set sail for the lee of Bryon 
Island, with instructions to return for us 
in two days, weather permitting. 
The following morning dawned cloudy, 
and with a high wind which drove the waves 
on to the rock-set base of our islet with ter- 
rific force. Fortunate it was that we had 
neither to reach nor to leave the rock that 
day. Photography was out of the question, 
and the time was devoted to collecting and 
preserving specimens. For the former pur- 
pose a gun was necessary only in securing 
gannets and kittiwakes, murres and razor- 
bills being caught in a dip-net by the keep- 
ers; one of whom, having a rope about his 
GANNETS ON NEST. 
Vor. LYIU—sot 
YOUNG GANNET. 
waist, which was held by his associate, ad- 
vanced to the edge of the cliff, or “cape,” as 
it is termed locally, and looked cautiously 
over in quest of birds resting on the ledges 
immediately below. Having determined their 
position, the net was thrust quickly down- 
ward; and the birds, in attempting to escape, 
often became entangled in its meshes. 
Puffins were caught on their nests in crey- 
ices in the face of the rock or in the holes 
they had burrowed in the earth on its top. 
The latter were sometimes shared with 
Leach’s petrel, a variety of “ Mother Carey’s 
chicken.” These little birds also occupied 
smaller burrows of their own, in which, at 
the end of a tunnel three or four feet in 
length, they would be found sitting on their 
single white egg or brooding a newly hatched 
chick—about as singular a 
specimen of bird life as ever 
wore feathers. 
The casual visitor to Bird 
Rock would never suspect the 
presence of these petrels; and, 
indeed, he might live there 
for years and still be un- 
aware that these birds also 
made it their home. While 
not wholly nocturnal, they are 
never seen about their bur- 
rows during the day. At this 
time usually only one of a pair, 
either the male or female, is 
to be found on the nest, while 
its absent mate passes the 
day at sea, returning after 
dark. One night I visited the 
end of the rock where the 
petrels breed, and from the 
