96 
THE CONDOR 
I VOL. V 
Cassin Auklet, Ptychoramphus aleuticus 
BY HOWARD ROBERTSON 
O N Thursday afternoon, June 8, 1899, after the only pleasant day’s sailing 
on a two week’s cruising trip, we arrived at Santa Barbara Island, to ex- 
tend our ornithological investigation and add a few more specimens of 
birds and eggs to our collections. We had had several day’s collecting on the Ana- 
capa Island, resulting only in the taking of numerous sets of the western gull 
and a few birds. We had hoped to find the Cassin auklet breeding here, but our 
observation only extended in any degree of completeness to the northern island of 
this group; and not finding the auklet burrows there, and being concerned in sav- 
ing our necks, had declined to scale the sides of the middle island. We knew from 
a previous record published by Mr. Grinnell that the auklet bred in numbers on 
Santa Barbara Island, and our captain promising to land us in a place of easy ac- 
cess, we lost no time in covering the distance between. 
We reached Santa Barbara about 2:30 P. M., and anchoring in a large cove, 
immediately loaded our skiff and rowed to the shore. The sides of the island 
around the cove drop very abruptly to the water-line, while beyond, to the north- 
east, it slopes gradually down to the water’s edge. We had hoped to land at one 
of these low places, but our captain much preferred to land us on a large rock in- 
side the cove; and there he accordingly dumped us, and after pulling the skiff up 
on the rock, we scrambled, with the best of our ability, and by the aid of an old 
rusty chain, to the top of the island. We threaded our way among the gulls’ nests 
and, after examining a few, proceeded to the southern end, where the higher land 
slopes gradually towards the cove. Here we found a number of auklet burrows 
and at once went to work. There is no particular rule in auklet land that we 
could find for the birds to follow in their home building. Each bird seems to fol- 
low its own idea (and that is often crooked) in its method of digging, while his 
neighbor perhaps, in a spirit of conceit, in trying to improve, makes matters (for 
the collector) ten times worse. We examined many burrows, some of which were 
easily followed to the nest, and others, on account of the many turns, had to be 
given up entirely. They ranged in depth from two feet to six or seven feet, some 
being tunneled ju.st beneath the crust of the ground, while others went straight in 
and, on account of the dust and accumulating dirt, were very hard to follow. 
There was one burrow that was something of a curiosity. It was dug in the form 
of a spiral, the nest being placed, after two complete turns, almost directly under- 
neath the entrance. Near the entrance of many of the burrows there were a num- 
ber of old sticks and feathers, probably the remains of a last year’s nest. I think 
in nearly all the instances where this occurred the burrows were occupied. The 
nest was invariably placed at the end of the burrow, though in several instances 
the burrow extended beyond a short distance, perhaps six or eight inches, and 
was composed of a few sticks and a few loose feathers, placed indiscriminately on 
the damp sand. In placing the hand in an uncovered burrow over the unoccupied 
nest, a certain degree of warmth could be felt, caused without a doubt, by the heat 
from the body of the incubating bird and retained by the damp sand. 
The egg, when fresh, is of a creamy white color and they vary greatly in size, 
as the examples here will show. After incubation has commenced the shell be- 
comes darker, more toward a light bluish color and is very often discolored. One 
of the parent birds was present in each nest that contained an egg and care had to 
