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Bird - Lore 



found the birds apparently more abundant 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 Auklets, one needs a tool not often used by the 

 bird student — a crowbar. 



To locate 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 giant pebbles and cannot be readily re- 

 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. 



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 15 feet in diameter. They worked in the central depres- 

 sion, carrying or rolling stones until the task became hopeless, and still the 

 Auklets were chattering underneath the stones all about. Mr. E. 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. A set consists of a single egg, white, with 

 sometimes a few dark blotches, and measuring 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 shore. These small crustaceans, less 



A FAVORITE NESTING-PLACE OF AUKLETS, PRIBILOF ISLANDS, ALASKA 

 Photographed by Dr. C. H. Townsend 



