LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 115 
Although apparently a silent bird at other times, this auklet is a 
very noisy bird on its breeding grounds at night. Mr. Dawson’s 
(1909) graphic pen describes the evening concert as follows: 
The stage setting is perfect, down to the footlights. Now, for the orchestra: 
“ Petteretteretterell, etteretteretterell”—it is the tap, tap of the petrel con- 
ductor calling the island to attention. Soon ghostly forms steal about in the 
gathering gloom. Voice answers voice as each moment flies. The flitting 
shadows become a throng and the chorus a tumult. But in the grand melange 
there is a new note. A quaint burring croak wells up from the ground, elfish, 
gruesome, portentous. The Cassin auklets are waking up. Heard alone, the 
auklet chorus reminds one of a frog pond in full cry. As one gives attention to 
an individual performer, however, and seeks to locate him in his burrow, the 
mystery and strangeness of it grows. The vocalist is complaining bitterly of 
we know not what wrongs. We must be within 3 feet of the noise as we 
stoop at the burrow’s mouth; the volume of it is earfilling; yet its source seems 
furlongs off. Now it is like the squealing of a pig in a distant slaughter pen. 
We lift our heads, and the stockyards are reeling with the prayers and cries 
of a thousand victims. And now the complaint falls into a cadence, “ Let meee 
out, let meee out, let me out.” A thousand dolorous voices take up the chorus. 
The uproar gets upon the nerves. Is this a bird lunatic asylum? Have we 
stumbled upon an avian madhouse here in the lone Pacific? And are these 
inmates appealing to the moon, their absent mistress? 
Mr. Charles A. Keeler (1892) says: 
Their note resembles the creaking of a rusty gate, and may be represented by 
the syllables creek a reek, creek a reek, creek a reek. 
Cassin’s auklets, especially when fat, make very good eating, and 
have doubtless beén used largely for food by many tribes of Indians 
or by fishermen. Professor Heath (1915) says: 
In ancient times this species figured largely in the natives’ bill of fare, and 
large numbers were annually taken by means of snares or were attracted by 
bonfires and subsequently knocked down. 
Large numbers of Cassin’s auklets are occasionally washed up 
dead on the beaches of our Pacific coast. Mr. J. H. Bowles (1908) 
discovered that, in one case at least, this mortality was due to an 
epidemic of intestinal tapeworms. In addition to finding dead birds 
of this and other species strewn along the beach, he noted that— 
The ocean was rather plentifully dotted with sick birds, some of them so 
close in as to be rolled over and over in the breakers. 
The intestines of a shearwater were packed solid with tapeworms. 
These worms were about 3 inches long, rather slender, and marked with 
alternate rings of white and brownish black. There were many hundreds of 
the disgusting parasites in every bird, making death from starvation an 
absolute certainty. 
Mr. Howell writes me that on the Coronados Islands— 
These birds suffer a great deal from the depredations of duck hawks, a pair 
or two.of which are usually found near the auklet colonies. Even though 
55916—19—Bull. 107-9 
