ALASKA. 209 



be approached almost within au arm's length before taking 

 flight, sitting npright and eyeing one with an air of great wis- 

 dom, combined with profound astonishment. 



"Usaallj' about the 1st or 4th of May, every year, the 

 chooehkie makes its first appearance around the islands for the 

 season, in small flocks of a few hundreds or thousands, hover- 

 ing over and now and then alighting upon the water, sporting 

 one with another, in apparent high glee, and making an inces- 

 sant low' chatterin g sound. By the 1st to the 6th June they 

 have arrived in greatest number, and they then commence to 

 lay. They frequent the loose stony reefs and bowlder-bars on 

 Saint Paul's, together with the cliff's on both islands, and au 

 area of over five square miles of basaltic shingle on Saint 

 George's. To the last island they come in greatest number. 

 There are millions of them. They make no nests, but lay a 

 single egg each, far down below among loose rocks, or they 

 deposit it deep within the crevices or chinks in the faces of the 

 bluffs. 



"Although, Owing to their immense numbers, they seem to 

 be in a state of great confusion, yet they pair off and conduct 

 all of their billing and cooing down under the rocks, upon the 

 spot chosen for incubation, making during this interesting 

 period a singular grunting or croaking sound, more like a 

 'devil's fiddle' than anything I have ever heard outside of 

 city limits. 



"A walk over their breeding-grounds at this season is exceed- 

 ingly interesting and amusing, as the noise of hundreds of 

 these little birds directly under foot gives rise to an endless 

 variation of sound, as it comes up from the stony holes and 

 caverns below, while the birds come and go, in and out, with 

 bewildering rapidity, comically blinking and fluttering. 



" The male birds, and many of the females, regularly leave 

 the breeding-grounds in the morning and go off to sea, where 

 they feed on small water-shrimps and sea-fleas, {AmpMpoda,) 

 returning to their nests and sitting partners in the evening. 



"The choochkie lays a single pure-white egg, exceedingly 

 variable in size and shape, usually oblong-oval, with the smaller 

 end somewhat pointed. I have several specimens almost spher- 

 ical, and others drawn out into an elongated ellipse ; but the 

 oblong-oval, with the pointed smaller end, is the prevailing 

 type. The egg is very large, compared with the size and weight 

 of the little parent. Average length, 1.55; width, 1.12. The 

 14 AL 



