LIFE HISTORIES OF NOETH AMEEICAN DIVING BIRDS. 13^ 



tranquil inland seas. Here we never failed to find them, in every 

 harbor we visited in June, floating quietly in little parties of from 

 four to six birds on the smooth waters of sheltered bays and often 

 close to the shores. Although at other seasons this species frequents 

 the open sea and is generally seen on migrations farther from land 

 than others of its tribe, in the summer it seems to love to frequent 

 protected harbors where it can find deep water, leaving its winter 

 companions, the auklets, far outside. 



Spring. — Mr. Harrj'- S. Swarth (1911) noted many ancient mur- 

 relets migrating along the southern Alaska coast between May 19 and. 

 June 7, 1909. He says : 



On June 7, while crossing Clarence Straits, between Prince of Wales and 

 Duke Islands, more were observed than at any other place, but as soon as the 

 sheltered waters about the latter island were reached they were no longer to 

 be seen. The preference evinced for the open sea was very marked, and not 

 a single individual was seen at any time in the sheltered waters of the inner 

 passages. 



Nesting. — The ancient murrelets arrive on their breeding grounds 

 about the first of June, but do not mate or begin breeding immedi- 

 atel3\ We saw them swimming about in small flocks, apparently 

 unmated, up to June 20, though the first eggs were seen at Atka 

 Island on June 13. Mr. Chase Littlejohn, who spent the spring and 

 summer of 1894 on different islands south of the Alaska Peninsula, 

 furnished Major Bendire (1895) with some very full and interesting 

 notes on the breeding habits of this species on Sanak Island. I can 

 not do better than quote practically all he has to say on the subject, 

 as follows: 



By June 2 their nesting grounds were reached, but no birds were to be found, 

 and to one unacquainted with their habits there was no sign of their having yet 

 arrived. Nevertheless, we land, pitch our tent, and wait until the close of that 

 long twilight which is only found in the far North, and just as it merges into 

 night we see a batlike form flit by, and presently from somewhere in the gloom 

 comes an abrupt and startling kroo-kroo-coo, which is at once answered with a 

 like call, or with a nerve-destroying kwee-kc^kc-ke, in a very high, shrill key, 

 the call note of Leach's petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) . Presently we hear a 

 whir of wings in different directions, then more voices, pitched in various keys, 

 and before we are scarcely aware of it, both heaven and earth seem to vibrate 

 with rumbling noises and whir of wings. 



As we step out of our tent, perfectly astonished at this sudden change, and 

 move to the foot of a small knoll near by, listening to this violent outburst of 

 noices, a muffled sound comes right from under our feet. We stoop and discover 

 a small burrow in the earth, and from it come the cooing love notes of a petrel, 

 k-r-r-r, k-r-r-r, and this is its home. Just from a somewhat larger burrow, only 

 a few feet to our right, comes another sound, and moving cautiously in this 

 direction we listen to the love notes of Cassin's auklet, which reminds one of 

 the sounds produced by a squeaky bucksaw while passing through a hard knot, 

 somewhat like kicee-kew, kicee-keio, which, fortunately, lasts only for three or 

 four hours each night. These noises, coming as they do from hundreds of 



