. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The California Murre air, while the females remain huddled together, shifting uneasily upon their eggs, or backing away from the nearest ones, uttering apprehensive hows. All the birds in turn bow ex- travagantly, using only their heads and sinuous necks, and so frequently that a colony viewed from above looks something like a grain field under a breeze. If the intruder does not press his advantage too hotly, those that have retreated from their eg
. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The California Murre air, while the females remain huddled together, shifting uneasily upon their eggs, or backing away from the nearest ones, uttering apprehensive hows. All the birds in turn bow ex- travagantly, using only their heads and sinuous necks, and so frequently that a colony viewed from above looks something like a grain field under a breeze. If the intruder does not press his advantage too hotly, those that have retreated from their eggs make shuffling feints at return, aided oc- casionally by their wings. Those that have found their eggs bend low to inspect them, or use the bill to assist in thrusting them between their legs. Others pause now and then to yawn or to stretch the wings, beating them rapidly three or four times before refolding. This is when the birdman seats himself on the white-washed ledge, Turk-fashion, places the camera in his lap and begins to shuffle forward like a leg- less beggar, "snapping" momentarily. The strain of approaching danger begins to tell on the Murrine nerve; but when the last mother has fled, we have before us such a varied assortment of eggs that regret is lost in wonder. Murres' eggs are the Majolica ware of ever)' bird-egg collection. In ground-color varying from pure white and delicate grays to beryl-green or even sea-green, they are speckled, splattered, blotched, and daubed with browns and blacks of a hundred shades. The more lightly marked speci- mens may have nothing by way of ornamentation beyond faint vermicula- tions of pale oil-green and tawny olive, or else tiny irruptions of sordid lavender and Indian purple; but others may be scrawled like a blackbird's egg with purplish blacks, or buried, like a hawk's, in a smudge of chestnut- rufous. One specimen in the M. C. O. collection exhibits a five-rayed rosette of carob-brown on a whitish ground. Anoth
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1923
