visit the place, and get better acquainted with the metropolis of the 

 auklets. At the Pribilofs we found the birds apparently more abun- 

 dant under boulders near the beaches than in the high cliffs. In seeking 

 the nests of the crested auklets, and in fact the nests of any of the auk- 

 lets, one needs a tool not often used by the bird student a crowbar. 



To discover the nesting-localities is easy. One has but to walk 

 along the great ridges of volcanic stones thrown up by the sea. The 

 stones are rounded and sea-worn like pebbles, but they are gigantic 

 pebbles and cannot readily be moved. The auklets go far down 

 among them, perhaps three or four feet, and can be heard chattering 

 there during any part of the nesting-season. 



A FAVORITE NESTING- PLACE OF AUKLETS ON THE 



PRIBILOF ISLANDS 

 From a Photograph by Dr. Charles H. Townsend 



The natives attempted to show us the nests. They lifted or rolled 

 the heavy rounded stones for half an hour, until there was a circle of 

 them around us waist high and fifteen feet in diameter. They worked 

 in the central depression, carrying or rolling stones until the task be- 

 came hopeless, and still the auklets were chattering underneath the 

 stones all about. Edward W. Nelson writes that on the northern 

 islands of Bering Sea, St. Matthew, St. Lawrence, and the Diomedes, 

 the eggs are sometimes deposited in exposed places, with little attempt 

 at concealment. One egg only is laid. It is white, in some cases 

 marked with a few dark blotches, and measures on the average 2.10 

 by 1.40 inches. 



We found that a considerable part of the food of this and other 

 kinds of auklets, consisted of amphipod crustaceans, or beach-fleas, as 

 they are called, when found under bits of seaweed along the shore. 



54 



