508 



THE DIVma J3IKDS — PYGOPODES. 



similar acicular feathers crosses the auricidar region, from behind the lower eyelid. Lower parts 

 chiefly white, the breast and sides more or less spotted with dark slate, this fret^uently formin" a 

 distinct and uninterrupted collar across the jugulum, usually in abrupt and marked contrast to the 

 white of the throat ; chin and malar region plumbeous, this usually fading gradually into the 

 white below it. Bill dark reddish ; iris white ; legs and feet dusky in the dried skin. Adult in 

 winter (= Uria pusilla, Pallas): Bill smaller, nu)re compressed, and destitute of the tubercle at 

 the base of the culmen ; lower parts, including the sides of the neck, continuously white, the chin 

 phunbeous, as in the summer plumage ; white ornamental feathers of the forehead, etc., usually 

 less developed, or, in younger specimens, altogether wanting. You7ig, first plumage: Similar to 



the M-inter adult, but bill still smaller, no 

 trace of the ornamental plumes about the 

 head, and white scapular patches larger and 

 more distinct. Downy young .■ Uniform sooty 

 slate, paler and nicn-e grayish on the lower 

 ]iarts. 



Wing, 3.50-4.00 inches ; culmen, .35- 

 .40 ; depth of bill (in summer adult), about 

 .30, in winter adult and young, about .20 ; 

 tarsus, .65 ; middle toe, .80. 



A series of nearly seventy specimens ob- 

 tained on the breeding-grounds in June and 

 July on St. Paul's and St. George's Islands, 

 Alaska, by Mr. H. W. Elliott, affords ample 

 material for studying the individual varia- 

 tions of this species, which, as shown by 

 The principal variation consists in the degree to which 

 In none is the white perfectly continii- 



Doicny young. 



this immense series, is very considerable 

 the Avhite of the lower parts is broken by dark spotting 

 ous, as in the winter plumage, alfhough in a few it is very nearly so ; there being in all more or 

 less dark spotting across the jugulum and along the sides. The most highly plumaged specimens 

 have a broad and uninterrupted collar of dark slaty across the jugulum, abruptly defined against 

 the immaculate white of the throat, but below broken up into coarse spots, which continue along 

 the entire sides, and often over the breast and abdomen also ; in none, however, is there more 

 than an approach to a segregation of the spots on the breast, and the lower parts are probably 

 never uniformly dark, except the jugular collar. There is also much variation in the distinctness 

 and extent of the white scapular areas, the majority of specimens having these well defined, while 

 in some they are nearly obsolete. In one example (No. 62624), in which the upper parts are a 

 particularly deep and glossy black, there is no trace of them ; this specimen being also wholly 

 destitute of the ornamental filaments of the head, and having the knol) on the bill very slightly 

 developed. 



Mr. H. W. Elliott met with this species — the Least, or Knob-billed, Auk — on the 

 Prybilof Islands. He speaks of it as the most characteristic of the waterfowl fre- 

 quenting these islands, to which it repairs every summer by millions to breed with 

 its allies, Slmorhi/nclius cristutellus (Canooskie) and the Cydovrhi/nchus jisittaadus. 

 It is said to be comically indifferent to the proximity of man, and can be approached 

 almost within arm's length before taking flight, sitting u})right, and eying one with 

 an air of great wisdom combined witli profound astonishment. Usually about the 1st 

 or 4th of INIay every year the Choochkie — as this bird is called — makes its first 

 apjiearance around the islands, for the season, in small flocks of a few hundreds or 

 thousands, hovering over, and now and then alighting, upon the water, sporting, one 

 with another, in apparent high glee, and making an incessant low chattering sound. 

 By the 1st to the Gth of June they have arrived in great numbers, and then begin to 

 lay. They frequent the loose stony reefs and bowlder-bars on St. Paid's, together 

 with the cliffs on both islands, and an area of over five square miles of basaltic shingle 



