LEAST AUKLET 129 



chunky little bodies bounded along over the waves, their small wings 

 vibrating at high speed. They would rise readily from the surface 

 and would dive like lightning, so quickly that we could not see 

 how it was done; but we could frequently see them swimming under 

 water, using their wings. When one or more of their number were 

 shot, others would come and alight near them, showing a sympathetic 

 interest between what were perhaps mated pairs. 



Spring. The "choochkies," as they are called by the natives, be- 

 gin to arrive to their breeding grounds in hundreds about the 1st of 

 May, increasing to thousands during that month and reaching the 

 height of their abundance early in June, when they swarm in millions 

 about the rocky beaches of the Pribilof Islands, outnumbering any 

 other species in Bering Sea. It is difficult for one who has not seen 

 them to appreciate their abundance and one is not likely to overesti- 

 mate their numbers. One of their greatest breeding grounds is on 

 the Diomede Islands, in Bering Straits, which Mr. E. W. Nelson 

 (1887) has thus aptly described: 



As we lay at anchor close under the Big Diomede the cliffs arose almost sheer 

 for hundreds of feet. Gazing up toward one of these banks we could see the 

 air filled with minute black specks, which seemed to be floating by in an end- 

 less stream. The roar from the rush of waves against the base of the cliffs 

 was deadened by the strange humming chorus of faint cries from myriads of 

 small throats, and as we landed, a glance upward showed the island standing 

 out in bold, jagged relief against the sky and surrounded by such inconceivable 

 numbers of flying birds that it could only be likened to a vast beehive, with the 

 swarm of bees hovering about it. The mazy flight of the birds had the effect 

 several times of making me dizzy as I watched them. Breeding there were 

 several species of auks and guillemots. Our first visit was made about the 

 middle of July, and most of the birds, including the present species, had fresh 

 eggs. 



We found them in the greatest abundance about the Pribilof 

 Islands early in July. As we approached St. Paul Island in a dense 

 fog we ran into great rafts of them sitting on the smooth water and 

 they were constantly flying about us in immense flocks. Their con- 

 stant twittering sounded like the distant peeping of myriads of 

 hylas in early spring or like a great flock of peep in full cry. When 

 we landed on one of the stony beaches where they were breeding the 

 effect was marvelous, as they suddenly appeared from beneath the 

 great piles of loose rocks in inconceivable numbers, like a swarm of 

 mosquitoes rising from a marsh, whirling about us in a great be- 

 wildering cloud and flying out to sea. 



Nesting. On Walrus Island we found the least auklets breeding in 

 smaller numbers on July 7, 1911, where they were nesting in remote 

 crevices under the loose, rounded granite bowlders, which the action 

 of the sea had piled up on the high beaches. Nesting with them 



