The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-02-02
NORTHERN BIRD ROCKS.
Armies. of Winged Creatures Make
Their Homes on Bleak Cliffs.

As one sails along the shores of
Greenland Labrador and Newfound.
land he sees bleak rocks, sometimes
small and sometimes rising three, four
or five hundred feet out of the sea.
covered as thickly with birds as a tree
IS covered with a swarm of bees which
has Just left the hive.
The birds which gather in the larg-
est congregations are the guillemots
and cormorants something over n
century ago the great aux swarmed in
the North, but this bird has become
extinct The most numerous of all the
Northern birds is the guillemot. called
by the fishermen "murrs' and
"turrs. y 1t supplies a hundred thous
and fishermen every spring and
summer with the only fresh meat thev
get while afloat
These birds weigh nearly two pounds
They are white on the breast. black or
the back and have long, black, sharr
bills They congregate in the BAYS II
winter in hundreds of thousands and
IN spring fly out and wing their wav
south to rocks and islands on some
desolate coast. They have been seen
perched In thousands on some iceberg
making its southern march fror
Baffin s Bay in the spring.
Among the guillemots are scattered
hundreds of razor bills. prettilv
shaped little birds that have plumag,
like their neighbors. but are provided
with deep and beautifully marked
bill.
1t is very interesting to watch IN
mother bird take the Young one fror
the top of high cliff down to the seq
The mother entices the tiny bird, no
larger than an English sparrow. an9
covered with black and white. down Il
the edge of the cliff. Then she lower
herself to the elf 5 edge. BALANCING
with her wing till the little one guidp9
| by its instinct. crawls carefully mo,
the mother s back, crouching firmI,
between her wings.
Then the mother, with very stead,
end gentle motion of her pinions. low
ers herself down and outward into III
sea. clear of rocks and surf.
Vast armies Of cormorants. called II
Northern fishermen ''shags '-larg,
and black birds with long WINGS. leo
and necks and slow flight-also invaar
the bird rocks. making them coz
black from the first of May till tn
first of July.
| Sometimes they grow tired of one n
their nesting places and scour tn
coasts for new abodes. There il d,
island off the coast of Labrador wbicr
some years ago was visited every sen
son by myraids of guillemots. The cor
morants saw the place took a liking f.
and one spring surrounded it. abou.
10000 strong. a few days after tn
gu'l'emots had taken possession.
IN ITS day the aux was more nuror
Gus even than the cormorant. Off III.
coast of Newfoundland lies a oroun y
stands called the Funks. Here in tn
beginning of the last century the oair
fowl with its short. abortive wings, re-
orted in hundreds of thousands t.
breed. Beneath the feathers was thirl
coating of valuable down, and If
flesh, after the bird had been soaked
was extremely palatable
The great aux could not flv Its it'll
wings resembled fins. But it swar
hundreds of miles out Of the bavs i
spring and back again in the autumn
10 ana from the Matching places It wa
helpless on land and prey to any en-
envy larger than itself.
i Some naturalists used to claim tha
the aux came as far south as the Goa
IF Maine, but in the opinion of mos
authorities the bird went no furth
then Newfoundland. 1t is ius
possible that the bones discover.
by ornithologists farther south na-
have been conveyed therein by til
-moo 10 aIo!lIe uG seM !! u9qM ougu.
merce.-(Kansas City Star.