42 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 61, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



thousands" at Atka. Stejneger (1885) considered it rather scarce 

 in the Commander Islands. It appears to be relatively scarce in 

 Bering Sea north of the Aleutian chain, though it does range far 

 northward. In 1944, Gabrielson saw "thousands" between St. 

 Matthew and Nunivak Islands and a "scattering of birds" be- 

 tween St. Matthew and Adak. Nelson (1887) mentions a specimen 

 obtained by Dall in Kotzebue Sound in 1899 and adds, "just 

 northwest of the straits, the last of August, 1881, quite a number 

 of dark-plumaged birds were seen, with many Rodgers's fulmars, 

 which appeared to differ in size and appearance from the latter, 

 and which I am inclined to think belonged to this species." Nelson 

 records the Eskimo name for the slender-billed shearwater in 

 Kotzebue Sound, thus showing that it must habitually occur 

 there. A number of specimens have been taken at St. Lawrence 

 Island in recent years (Murie 1936). The Eskimos of this 

 island have certain taboos in connection with eating the bird. 

 A specimen is recorded from the Pribilof s. 



According to Bent (1922), the northward migration is mainly 

 in the western Pacific-, and the southward migration is in the 

 eastern Pacific. He says they occur in the Okhotsk Sea, as well 

 as in Bering Sea. 



Slender-billed shearwaters will feed on refuse from a ship's 

 galley. On August 10, 1937, three of these birds came up to 

 the stern of our ship as we drifted in the fog. They readily 

 ate bits of beef and fish thrown overboard. They would dive for 

 pieces that sank, keeping wings half opened, but propelling them- 

 selves entirely by their feet under water. Apparently they can 

 go to a considerable depth ; they would sometimes pursue a 

 baited fishhook thrown in for cod and remain underneath for a 

 considerable length of time. 



On two occasions we watched a shearwater pursue an injured 

 codfish that had been discarded by the sailors as being wormy; 

 as the fish wiggled feebly through the water, the bird pursued 

 it and snipped out pieces of the gills from the still-living fish. 



But probably the most important food of the shearwater con- 

 sists of crustaceans and other small invertebrates. On numerous 

 occasions they joined with fulmars and auklets in the turbulent 

 tide rips, where all were busy feeding. Sample tows taken in 

 such places revealed a greater quantity of plankton than in 

 adjacent areas unoccupied by birds. In this connection, it may be 

 significant that the center of abundance of shearwaters in the 

 Aleutians today coincides fairly well with localities where whales 

 were once particularly abundant — in the Fox Island group. Per- 



