The Ancient Murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus ) in Ontario.— 
The only two Ontario records of the Dovekie (Alle alle) prove, on examina¬ 
tion of the birds, to be Ancient Murrelets. The first was recorded by Mr. 
J. H. Ames in ‘ The Auk 1902, p. 94, as follows: “ A Dovekie (Alle alle) 
was shot Nov. 18, 1901, by H. Macdonald, a fisherman, two miles out in 
the lake from Toronto, Ontario. Mr. John Maughan, a taxidermist, now 
has it in his possession. I was present when he opened the stomach, which 
was empty except for a few small fish bones. It was a female and evidently 
a young bird, as there was no white on the secondaries and the back was 
slaty instead of a black.” On turning up my Journal I find that I too had 
noted the absence of white on the wings and the slaty-blue of the back, 
I also noticed that the beak was very small and the bird itself large for a 
Dovekie but had no suspicion of the real identity of the bird and repeated 
the record in my ‘ Birds of Toronto ’ (Auk, 1906, p. 441). Recently 
through the kindness of Mr. Maughan I have been able to compare his 
bird with a series of Ancient Murrelets in my collection, the Toronto bird 
is much like a female from Howkan, Alaska, April 12, 1897, but lacks the 
long white feathers of the sides of the head and nape, the plumbeous rump 
and upper tail feathers are obscured by dusky, the body feathers under the 
wings plumbeous instead of black, the chin and throat sooty on only the 
upper half, and the beak narrower and weaker. 
Mr. Maughan’s data give the length as 10.25 in., spread 18.5in.; weight 
4 oz., feet light bluish gray, webs darker. 
The second bird was recorded by Mr. Everett P. Wheeler in ‘ Bird Lore ’, 
1909, p. 174, as follows, “ November 15, 1908, I found on the Canadian 
shore of Lake Erie, about seven miles from Buffalo, the body of a Dovekie 
(Alle alle). The skin was identified by Mr. Savage and Dr. Cummings of 
the Buffalo Academy of Science and is still in my possession. The specimen 
was a male, entirely free from subcutaneous fat, and the crop was empty.” 
Wishing to know what had become of this bird I wrote to Mr. James 
Savage of Buffalo who very kindly put me in communication with Mr. 
Wheeler and in September 1910, the latter presented me with what re¬ 
mained of the specimen explaining that it had been almost completely 
destroyed by moths. Fortunately the wings are perfect enough to be 
measured, there are a few feathers on the head, and the beak and feet are 
uninjured, and the bird can be identified with certainty. There is one 
other record of the Ancient Murrelet in the region of the Great Lakes, one 
taken at Lake Koshkonong, Wisconsin, late in October, 1882, and recorded 
by George B. Dennett (Auk, 1884, p. 98). Of the many accidental 
migrants to the Great Lakes hardly another species has so restricted or 
remote a range. The Ancient Murrelet is confined in summer to the North 
Pacific; breeding in the Aleutians most to the Commander Islands and 
Kamschatka thence south to the Kurile Islands, apparently not entering 
Bering Sea proper. In winter it ranges south to Japan, and more rarely 
from Alaska along the British Columbian coast, and south to California. 
In view of the restricted range it is difficult to account for the presence of 
the Murrelets on the Great Lakes, if the birds are young as they likely are, 
Mr. A. C. Bent’s suggestion that they were stragglers to the Arctic Ocean 
and becoming lost were carried through the Northwest Passage with the 
ice that moves eastward with the prevailing current, is not improbable. 
Against this is the fact as Mr. Bent points out, that the Arctic ice has 
always proved an effective barrier to prevent the eastward wanderings of 
Bering Sea forms, none of the Auklets or Murrelets having even near 
relatives on the east coast of Arctic America. Once into Hudson’s Bay it is 
not difficult for a sea bird to reach the Great Lakes.—J. H. Fleming, 
Toronto, Out. * X ft .^JUf / ?/ 2. ft*. 3 %% 
