1917 BIRDS OF THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ISLANDS 21 
in May, 1908, I could find no indications of the auklets’ presence on the island. 
G. Willett (19), however, found about a hundred pairs breeding on a large de- 
tached rock near the main island, June 14, 1911. Nine nests examined held 
heavily incubated eggs. 
G. Willett (25) states that the birds were common at Anacapa the night of 
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 (78, 19, 20) which 
occupies all 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 
have 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 young 
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. The 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. 
