Part 15

Both species of Murre laid their single peculiarly marked eggs on the bare shelves or ledges in the most exposed situations;^{89} and seeing them now for the first time in Nature, I was quite willing to accept the theory which has been advanced to account for their markedly toplike or pearlike shape. A round or elliptical egg, laid in the situations often chosen by the Murres, would, when moved by the wind or incubating bird, readily roll from its precarious position, but the pointed egg of the Murre when disturbed describes a circle about its own end. Thus, like a diplomat, it seemingly yields to superior force while retaining its original position. The eggs vary in color from greenish blue to buff, and are strikingly scrawled and blotched with shades of chocolate. No two are alike, a fact which it is supposed may aid the parent Murre in distinguishing her own egg among the dozens with which it may be placed.

The few eggs seen were doubtless laid by birds which had been robbed earlier in the season, but young were found in every stage, from the newly hatched downy chick,^{90} who sat on his narrow ledge vigorously screeching for food, to others half grown and with the natal down almost entirely replaced by the first winter plumage. The parents were still in attendance on the oldest birds, and no young were seen in the water.

Razorbills, perhaps because the Rock contained comparatively few of the sheltered nooks they require for nesting sites, were less abundant than Murres. Their downy young were much lighter in color than the young of the Murres, and their high squealing whistle could easily be distinguished from the screech of the young Murres. Of two specimens which had nearly completed the acquisition of their winter plumage, one had the white line from the eye to the bill so characteristic of the adult fully developed, while in the other it was wholly wanting—a variability in marking which suggests that the white stripe of the Ringed Murre is a similar individual peculiarity.

Next to the Murres the Kittiwakes are probably the most numerous birds on the Rock. Doubtless for the reason that they select the less accessible ledges where their eggs can not be so readily taken, their young were more advanced than those of any other of the birds breeding here. Their nests, rather bulky structures of seaweed, which often projected well over the edge of the ledge on which they were built, contained only young with their parents, one or two birds constituting a brood.^{91}

Kittiwakes were never observed perching on the upper ledges or rim of the Rock in the situations commonly selected by Murres, Razorbills, and Puffins. The last-named species, in fact, was never seen resting far from the top of the Rock, and its nests were placed in burrows excavated on the summit of the Rock, at the west end. Occasionally advantage was taken of an opening beneath a ledge, but generally the bird excavated a hole,^{92} about four inches in diameter and three or four feet in length, at the end of which we found the nest of grasses and feathers, with its single elliptical white egg^{93} and sitting bird, or a sooty, down-covered nestling.^{94}

Woe to the unsuspecting person who thrusts his hand into the jaw, one might say, of an incubating Puffin. Nature has not only provided the bird with an uncommonly powerful and efficient pair of mandibles, but also with a disposition which prompts it to use them to the best advantage. Never have I seen anything in the shape of a bird so diabolically vicious as a Puffin. An individual which we captured alive and attempted to study in our workroom, proved altogether too fierce a creature to have about, and its hoarse voice—half grunt, half groan—added to its unattractiveness.

In Nature, however, their trim appearance was very pleasing; Paroquets, the French-Canadians call them, and one has only to see the bird in life to appreciate the applicability of the name. It is not alone their looks but also their actions which suggest the Parrot. Unlike the Murres and Razorbills, they do not rest on the whole foot, 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 often faced it, hovering a foot or two above the rocks on outstretched, motionless wings, and retaining for several seconds this perfect balance between gravity and air pressure.

It is quite possible that I may have wholly misjudged the Puffin’s character, and that when unmolested their nature is peaceable in extreme. At any rate, they seem to be not only on excellent terms with their own kind, but with the very distantly related Leach’s Petrels, with which they sometimes shared their underground homes, one bird’s nest being at the end of the burrow, the other about half way to the entrance. The Petrels also occupied burrows of their own, which, judging from the actions of the birds found in them, they had excavated by the aid of their toes.^{95}

The Petrel’s nests were composed of fine grasses and a few feathers, and one nest contained two bits of white birch bark, the presence of which raised the question as to whether these gleaners of the sea do not gather suitable nesting material when they find it floating on the surface of the water. Two of the eight or ten Petrels’ nests examined contained a single white egg; one egg constituting a full set with this species, as with all the other rock-nesting birds, except the Kittiwake. The remaining nests were each occupied by a newly hatched young bird—a gray ball of down, so unlike anything in feathers I had ever seen that, if it had not been for their tiny, young chickenlike peep, I should have been inclined to pass it by as a wad of gray cotton.^{96} Never more than one of the parent birds, either the male or female, was found on the nest, nor was a single Petrel seen about the Rock during the day.

The Puffins and Petrels are now the only birds nesting on the summit of the Rock, not a single descendant of the one hundred thousand Gannets which, according to Bryant, occupied the top of the Rock in 1860 now being found there. To-day this species nests only on the less accessible border ledges on the face of the Rock, where they are grouped in colonies. Most of them were incubating, but several were brooding their young, which ranged in size from the naked, black-skinned, newly hatched chick to those that had acquired the white, swan’s-downlike first plumage.^{97}

With the exception of two white, black-spotted birds, all the Gannets seen, both on Bird Rock and Bonaventure, were in the adult white plumage, and if, as has been stated, this plumage is not gained until the bird is two years old, the question arises, What becomes of the immature birds during the nesting season?

An estimate of the number of individuals representing the seven species just mentioned as nesting on the Rock, is perhaps not warranted by my brief experience, nor should I attempt to give one, did not my photographs permit me to count with a fair degree of accuracy the number of birds in view on that part of the Rock shown in these pictures. Time was lacking to make, from a boat, a series of photographs of the Rock which would include all its bird-inhabited portions, and the appended estimates are based on the results of a count of the birds in photographs of about one half the occupied area. Murres, Razorbills, and Puffins can not be distinguished in these pictures and are therefore grouped under one head, it being calculated that about from fifteen hundred to two thousand individuals of these species make the Rock their home. Of this number probably not more than one hundred are Puffins, while the Common and Brünnich’s Murres (Uria troile et U. lomvia) outnumber the Razorbills at least four to one.

The Kittiwake population of the Rock probably numbers between six hundred and eight hundred birds; of Gannets, there are perhaps left only fifteen hundred of the more than one hundred thousand birds which Dr. Bryant writes of as living on the top of the Rock alone; and of Petrels, not more than fifty.

When on the Rock I should have said that it was tenanted by at least ten thousand birds, and I was not a little surprised to find that the evidence furnished by my photographic records gave a total of about four thousand birds. However, the sight of four thousand birds domiciled in one small islet is sufficiently impressive to increase the pulse beat of the most phlegmatic traveler; and even if this estimate be too large, the Rock’s merits as a bird resort are too substantial to be affected by any decrease in it which truth demands.

To return to an account of the day’s doings, the light, as has been said, was unfavorable for photography, and the time was devoted to collecting and preparing specimens and making a hurried survey of the bird rookeries on the Rock, with results briefly set forth above; but late in the afternoon the sun gave indications of its whereabouts behind the clouds, and I immediately substituted the camera for the scalpel, and had Keeper Bourque lower me in the crate in order that I might secure photographs of the birds observed on our ascent.

Neither the stability of the crate nor its constant turning were conditions which a photographer would choose, and, without the twin-lens it would have been impossible to secure pictures of the Kittiwakes^{85} and Murres, who in a surprised but unalarmed manner regarded me from their nests on the Rock, in some instances at a distance of not more than six feet.

At ten o’clock at night I visited the west end of the Rock to see and hear the Petrels that nest there. The casual visitor to Bird Rock would be quite unaware of the presence of these birds; indeed, one might live there for years without knowing that Petrels made it their home. As far as the Rock is concerned, the birds are strictly nocturnal; but as usually only one bird—either male or female—is found on the nest, it is supposed that its mate is at sea feeding. If this supposition be true, I am at a loss to account for the entire absence of the birds during the daytime. Why should they not return to their nests before nightfall? And if, as stated, the sea bird takes the place of the nest bird, does the latter always feed at night and the former by day, or do they sometimes change about, thus making the same individual both nocturnal and diurnal in habit?

However this may be, I had no sooner reached the part of the Rock tenanted by the Petrels than I was given the most surprising evidence of their activity during the night. From the ground at my feet and on every side there issued the uncanny little song—if I may so call it—of birds doubtless sitting at the mouths of their burrows. It was not like the cry of a sea bird, but a distinctly enunciated call of eight notes, possessing a character wholly its own, and not to be compared to the notes of any bird I have ever heard, though at the time it impressed me as having a certain crowing quality. Such a call might be uttered by elves or brownies. Occasionally I saw a blur of wings as a bird passed between me and the lighthouse.

Later, the fog, which had been scudding over us in wisps and ribbons, closed in, and through the medium of a guncotton bomb the Rock gave notice of its presence to the mariners who might be in the surrounding waters. Captain Taker heard the dull, booming voice as with disappointing promptness he came to take us from the Rock, and early in the morning we heard his fog horn from the gray bank below telling where the Sea Gem, as yet unseen, was anchored.

In the hope of better weather I deferred photographing the Gannets, the only accessible colony of which was on the north side of the Rock; but forced now to make the best of the existing conditions, I took the twin-lens, fastened one end of a rope about my waist, and gave the other end to Captain Bourque, in order that, unhampered by thought of fall, I might creep along the slippery ledges where the birds nested.^{99}

The fog had lifted, but the day was gloomy, and only the white plumage of the birds and a wide-open lens yielded successful photographs.

It was my first visit to the big white birds, who, in spite of persecution, have as yet acquired but little fear of man, and as with hoarse croaks and a dashing of wings they pitched onto the narrow ledges near me, their size and boldness, in connection with my somewhat insecure footing, aroused in me a feeling which I had not experienced when surrounded by the smaller Murres, Auks, and Puffins. The main nesting ledge was out of reach below, but small groups of birds were nearer, and these I photographed at a distance of about ten feet.^{100}

These Gannets are magnificent birds, and when on the wing exhibit a combination of power and grace excelled by no other bird I have seen. They are most impressive when diving, as with half-closed wings, like great spearheads, they descend from a height of about forty feet with a force and speed that takes them wholly out of sight, and splashes the water ten feet or more into the air. Cory graphically compares the sight of a distant flock of Gannets diving at a school of fish, to a continuous stream of beans poured from a pail.

Captain Bourque tells me that Gannets are no longer used for bait by the codfishers; but when one realizes that only two colonies of these grand birds, comprising a few thousand individuals, are all that are left of the species in this hemisphere, one could wish for these survivors something more than negative protection.

In the afternoon the weather gave promise of clearing, and entering the crate we were swung out over the edge of the Rock on the first stage of our homeward journey. The collections and outfit were placed aboard the schooner, while in a dory we attempted to visit Little Bird; but before we had rowed a quarter of a mile the fog crept back, Great Bird slowly disappeared from view and became only a periodic boom in the gray wall, and we returned to the schooner without delay.

The sail to Bryon, where we passed the night, apparently demonstrated Captain Taker’s possession of the sense of direction. In spite of a head wind, violent squalls, and a strong tide, he made his way through the fog with perfect assurance and dropped anchor at a particular lobster buoy, visible less than fifty yards from the schooner, but which in effect he appeared to have seen before we left the Rock. It was a remarkable bit of seamanship.

In Bird Rock the Canadian Government possesses an object of surpassing interest, one which, south of Greenland, is unique in eastern North America. It is the obvious duty of the proper authorities to preserve it, and the ease with which this can be done makes further neglect inexcusable. The appointment of the light keeper as a game warden is the only step required to make Bird Rock a safe retreat for sea fowl, until, in some future geologic age, it shall have yielded to the relentless attack of the waters.

LIFE ON PELICAN ISLAND, WITH SOME SPECULATIONS ON THE ORIGIN OF BIRD MIGRATION