Auklets 



399 



English coast. When the conditions permit they dig a burrow for themselves, 

 which is three or four feet in length and lined at the end with dry grass and 

 feathers, and woe betide the incautious person who thrusts a hand in to disturb 

 the setting bird. "Never," says Mr. F. M. Chapman, "have I seen anything 

 in the shape of a bird so diabolically vicious as a Puffin. An individual which 

 we captured alive and attempted to study in our workroom, proved altogether 

 too fierce a creature to have about." The Large-billed Puffin (F. a. naumanni), 

 which differs in its large bill and generally larger size, inhabits the coasts and 

 islands of the Arctic Ocean from Spitzbergen to Baffin's Bay, while the Horned 

 Puffin (F. corniculata), so called from the presence of horn-like processes on 

 the upper eyelid, is found in the North Pacific. 



Auklets. Confined to the North Pacific is a group of six species (referred, 

 however, to four genera) of curious miniature Auks known as Auklets or Pygmy 

 Auks, some of which are hardly larger than Sparrows. They are distinguished 

 from the Puffins by the fact that the terminal portion of the upper mandible 

 is not transversely grooved, and the 

 inner claw is of the same size and 

 shape as the others. Of these the 

 Whiskered Auklet (Simorhynchus 

 pygmcEUs} is perhaps the prettiest 

 species of the whole family, being 

 glossy blackish slate-color above and 

 lead-colored below; the length is 

 between seven and eight inches. 

 The head is ornamented with an 

 erect, graceful, recurving crest of 

 narrow, dull black plumes about one 

 and a half inches in length, besides 

 a series of slender, pointed white 

 feathers commencing beneath the 

 eye and extending backward across 

 the ear-coverts. They breed abun- 

 dantly on many islands in Bering 

 Sea, placing the egg in deep holes 



and crannies among the rocks. Closely allied is the Crested Auklet (S. 

 cristatellus), which has the same recurved frontal crest but is of larger 

 size, reaching the length of ten inches, and in addition has several deciduous 

 plates on the broad portion of the bill, which are cast off after the nesting 

 season. Smallest of all is the Least Auklet (S. ptisillus), which is only five 

 and a half to seven inches long. It lacks the frontal crest of the others, 

 but has a curious knob on the base of the bill which falls off after the 

 young are reared. This species is especially abundant on the Pribilof 

 Islands, where it occurs actually in millions during the breeding season, and 

 constitutes one of the most marvelous aggregations of bird life in the world. 

 "I can only compare their numbers to an apiary," says Mr. W'illiam Palmer, 



FIG. 136. Parrot Auklet, Cyclorrhynchus psitta- 

 culus. 



