CASSIN'S AUKLET 115 



Although apparently a silent bird at other times, this auklet is a 

 very noisy bird on its breeding grounds at night. Mr. Dawson's 

 (1909) graphic pen describes the evening concert as follows: 



The stage setting is perfect, down to the footlights. Now, for the orchestra: 

 " Fetter etteretterell, etteretteretterell" it is the tap, tap of the petrel con- 

 ductor calling the island to attention. Soon ghostly forms steal about in the 

 gathering gloom. Voice answers voice as each moment flies. The flitting 

 shadows become a throng and the chorus a tumult. But in the grand melange 

 there is a new note. A quaint burring croak wells up from the ground, elfish, 

 gruesome, portentous. The Cassin auklets are waking up. Heard alone, the 

 auklet chorus reminds one of a frog pond in full cry. As one gives attention to 

 an individual performer, however, and seeks to locate him in his burrow, the 

 mystery and strangeness of it grows. The vocalist is complaining bitterly of 

 we know not what wrongs. We must be within 3 feet of the noise as we 

 stoop at the burrow's mouth; the volume of it is earfilling; yet its source seems 

 furlongs off. Now it is like the squealing of a pig in a distant slaughter pen. 

 We lift our heads, and the stockyards are reeling with the prayers and cries 

 of a thousand victims. And now the complaint falls into a cadence, "Let meee 

 out, let meee out, let me out" A thousand dolorous voices take up the chorus. 

 The uproar gets upon the nerves. Is this a bird lunatic asylum? Have we 

 stumbled upon an avian madhouse here in the lone Pacific? And are these 

 inmates appealing to the moon, their absent mistress? 



Mr. Charles A. Keeler (1892) says: 



Their note resembles the creaking of a rusty gate, and may be represented by 

 the syllables creek a reek, creek a reek, creek a reek, 



Cassin's auklets, especially when fat, make very good eating, and 

 have doubtless been used largely for food by many tribes of Indians 

 or by fishermen. Professor Heath (1915) says: 



In ancient times this species figured largely in the natives' bill of fare, and 

 large numbers were annually taken by means of snares or were attracted by 

 bonfires and subsequently knocked down. 



Large numbers of Cassin's auklets are occasionally washed up 

 dead on the beaches of our Pacific coast. Mr. J. H. Bowles (1908) 

 discovered that, in one case at least, this mortality was due to an 

 epidemic of intestinal tapeworms. In addition to finding dead birds 

 of this and other species strewn along the beach, he noted that 



the ocean was rather plentifully dotted with sick birds, some of them so 

 close in as to be rolled over and over in the breakers. 



The intestines of a shearwater were packed solid with tapeworms. 



These worms were about 3 inches long, rather slender, and marked with 

 alternate rings of white and brownish black. There were many hundreds of 

 the disgusting parasites in every bird, making death from starvation an absolute 

 certainty. 



Mr. Howell writes me that on the Coronados Islands 



These birds suffer a great deal from the depredations of duck hawks, a pair 

 or two of which are usually found near the auklet colonies. Even though 

 the latter attain an amazing speed when pitching from the top of the islands 



