My object in visiting Bird Rock was not only to secure pictures of its bird life, but a certain number of birds for the American Museum of Natural History, where it is proposed to represent a portion of the Rock with its tenants. During my absence in the world of birds my good assistant had turned one of the supply houses into a laboratory, and was already at work preparing specimens with which the active Shelbourne and attentive keepers had plentifully supplied her. A gun was necessary only in securing Gannets and Kittiwakes, the Murres and Razorbills being caught in a dip-net by the keepers; one of whom, having a rope about his waist which was held by his associate, advanced to the edge of the cliff or “cape,” as it is termed locally, and looked cautiously over in quest of the birds resting on the ledges immediately below. Having learned their position the net was thrust quickly downward, and the birds, in attempting to escape, often flew directly into it and became entangled in its meshes. Puffins were captured on their nests in crevices in the face of the Rock or in the holes they had burrowed in the earth on the top. The latter were sometimes shared with Leach’s Petrel, who also occupied small burrows of their own. The schooner had dropped anchor near the Rock, but the wind increasing in strength, Captain Taker set sail for the lee of Bryon, and at midnight, when we concluded our day’s work, there was a promise of a stormy morrow, which daylight fulfilled. The wind drove the waves to the rock-set base of our islet with terrific force, making landing or departure out of the question. We had come just in time. The light prohibited successful photography, and the day was devoted to collecting and preserving specimens and exploring the Rock. [Illustration: 89. Murre’s egg.] We had arrived in the height of the nesting season, all of the seven species breeding on the Rock having eggs and young in various stages of development. It was evident, however, that the number of eggs and young was small as compared with the number of adults, a condition which was explained by Captain Bourque’s statement, that he thought about five thousand eggs had been taken from the Rock by fishermen that year. These were the eggs of Murres and Razorbills, the former being the most abundant birds on the Rock. Both the Common and Brünnich’s Murre were present, but I am unable to say which was the more numerous. There were also a few of the singular, so-called “Ringed” Murres,^{87} a bird whose standing is in doubt, some ornithologists regarding it as a distinct species, others as an individual variety.