File:Birds and nature (1906) (14563775670).jpg

Identifier: birdsnature41906chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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by a Murre, upon the bare ledges ofrocky cliffs. The single eggs are laidupon the rocky surface and no attemptis made to build a nest. General Greelyin his Three Years of Arctic Servicesays of the Briinnichs Murres on thebird cliffs of Arveprins Island (North-ern Greenland) : For over a thousandfeet out of the sea these cliffs rise per-pendicularly, broken only by -narrowledges, in general inaccessible to man orother enemy, which afford certain kindsof sea-fowl secure and convenient breed-inQ:-places. On the face of these sea-led,Q;es of Arveprins Island, BriinnichsGuillemots, or Loons, gather in thebreeding season, not by thousands, butby tens of thousands. Each lays but a sin-gle gray ^gg, speckled with brown; yetso numerous are the birds that everyavailable spot is covered with eggs. Healso calls attention to the fact that eachbird knows its own t%s^. The eggs aresaid to be very fine food, and the flesh ofthese Murres is highly praised by allwho have partaken of it. General Greely
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TRCN IGl :UNNICHS MURRE.(Uria lomvia).H Life-size. COFYRIGHT 19C0, BY A. W. MUMFORD, CHICAGO i says that to his taste It is the best and move but a very short distance fronr flavored of any of the Arctic sea-fowls, the places in which they laid. Some- The one egg laid by the Briinnichs times on the breeding ledges these birds Murre is fortunately pear-shaped. The will be so numerous that when sitting on eggs are frequently laid near the pre- their eggs they will quite or nearly touch cipitous edges of the ledges of rocky each other. It is evident in such crowds cliffs where, if they were more truly that when the birds are disturbed and spherical in form, they would be rolled caused to move suddenly, their eggs off the ledge and broken, for they are are quite surely moved and in danger of started rolling when the birds are sud- being broken. Fortunately the shells of denly startled. The pear-shaped eggs of the eggs are quite hard and easily resist the Murres instead of rolling some dis

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