1!)17 BIRDS OF THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ISLANDS 21 



in i\Iay. 1908, I could find no indications of the anklets' presence on the island. 

 G. Willett (19), however, fonnd about a hundred pairs ])reeding on a large de- 

 tached rock near the main island, June 14, 1911. Nine nests examined held 

 heavily incubated eggs. 



G. AVillett (3')) states tliat the birds were common at Anacapa the night ot: 

 June 5, 1910, and were undoubtedly breeding. They are not found on the main 

 part of either Santa Cruz or San Miguel, but on a rocky islet near Scorpion Har- 

 bor, at the former island, R. H. Beck (23) found many occupied burrows on June 

 5, 1895. On Prince Islet (San Miguel) there is a large colony (18, 19, 20) which 

 occupies fill available space. Willett (19) thinks that they breed on Santa Rosa. 



This species probably outnumbers all our other small pelagic birds com- 

 bined. They seem to be somewhat more plentiful in winter than during the rest 

 of the year, so it is possible that, although considered as non-migratory in Cali- 

 fornia, there is, during the cold weather, a limited influx of individuals that 

 liave bred farther north, which mingle with the local birds. The nesting season 

 varies appreciably from year to year. The birds begin looking for home sites 

 towards the latter part of February, and fresh eggs may be expected by the last 

 of March. During the middle of June, 1910, on the Coronados, however, I found 

 fresh eggs to be the rule, and encountered but one small young out of a score of 

 nests examined. On July 1, 1913, D. R. Dickey, A. van Rossem and I found but 

 two or three badly incubated eggs, the remainder of the nests containing youug 

 in various stages, most of them being half grown. Other observers have reported 

 a similar variation of nesting dates. 



The single white egg is laid by preference in a burrow in soft ground, but 

 in a large colony, a number of birds are forced to occupy crannies under and 

 between rocks. New burrows are not constructed when old ones are available, 

 and some of the latter are a foot in diameter at the entrance, seeming to have 

 been occupied for a very great number of years. The birds are rather filthy, and 

 the burrows have a very bad odor, strongly reminding one of an ill kept chicken 

 house. T\\e nestlings are at first covered with a slaty down which remains on the 

 tips of the feathers some time after these have grown out. In the morning the 

 crops of the youngsters were found to be stuffed with a thin, homogeneous mass 

 which smelled most vilely. 



The adults forage well out to sea, in pairs or as many as twenty-five indi- 

 viduals in a flock. They suffer a great deal from the depredations of the Duck 

 Hawks, a pair or two of which are usually to be found near each colony. The 

 auklets attain an amazing speed when pitching vertically from the tops of the 

 islands upon being released from the hand, but the falcons overtake them with 

 ease, and continue to slaughter after their hunger has been appeased, merely for 

 the fun of it. The great mortality among these birds that the winter storms cause 

 is appalling. After one of these storms I have walked along the beaches of our 

 mainland for mile after mile, and counted dead or dying birds, sometimes averag- 

 ing as close together as one every hundred yards (see Condor, xvi, 1913, p. 144). 

 This is probably due more to their being unable to feed in very rough water, 

 rather than to the buffeting of the waves. 



