190 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 61, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Hubbard (apparently for the tourist trade), entitled "One 

 Hundred Pictures of Little Known Alaska." Among other pic- 

 tures, there is a photograph of a "Rare merelet and egg," which 

 undoubtedly is that of the Kittlitz's murrelet. The caption ex- 

 plains that 



This very rare web-footed bird usually nests far from water on the rocky 

 crests of mountain ridges. This specimen, unafraid of the camera, was 

 gently lifted off its egg and photographed. The picture was taken in mid- 

 July in the unmapped northern section of the Katmai National Monument 

 on the Alaska Peninsula and is regarded as the only one in existence of this 

 unusual bird and its egg. 



Synthliboramphus antiquum: Ancient Murrelet 



Attu: Satrch 



Sdtdx and qiddnax (Jochelson) 

 Atka: Kriz-yung-a 

 Russian (?), Commander Islands: Starik, "old man" (Stejneger) 



This murrelet is definitely established as a breeding bird of 

 Kodiak Island (Friedmann 1935), and we saw it at intervals 

 all the way to the western end of the Aleutian chain. Jaques 

 (1930) saw several near Belkofski, May 17 and 18, 1928; and 

 McGregor (1906) obtained a specimen at the west side of Unimak 

 Island, August 14, 1901. 



Probably this bird appears only rarely, if at all, along the north 

 side of Alaska Peninsula, but in the Shumagins, on May 23, 1937, 

 we found flocks of them to be quite common. Chase Littlejohn 

 (Bendire 1895) has given us a vivid account of numbers of these 

 birds nesting on Sanak Island, but on our brief visit to that is- 

 land in 1937 we learned that large colonies of sea birds no longer 

 nest there. Evidently, they have disappeared because of man's 

 exploitation of fisheries, with the attendant disturbance, and be- 



Figure 35. — Ancient murrelet. 



