258 The Crested Auklet 
boulders near tlie beaches than in high clififs. 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 crozvbar. 
To discover the nesting-places 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 pebbles, but they are gigantic pebbles and can- 
not be readily removed. 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 
^'^BoufderT^”^ ^ circle of them around us waist high and fifteen 
feet wide. They worked in the central depression, 
carrying or rolling stones until the task became hopeless, and still the 
auklets were chattering underneath the stones all about. Edward W. 
A FAVORITE NESTING-PLAGE OF AUKLETS, PRIBILOF ISLANDS, ALASKA 
Photographed by Dr. C. H. Townsend 
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 
