A Crested Auk on the Massachusetts Coast. — While on a recent collec¬ 
ting trip to Chatham, Mass., I was asked by Mr. A. W. Baker, an intelli¬ 
gent and trustworthy gunner and fisherman of that place, to give him the 
name of a bird killed at Chatham during the winter of i 884 -’ 8 s, which he 
described as being very much like the Little Auk or Dovekie in foun and 
color, though a little larger, and having a tuft of narrow, pointed feathers 
on the front of the head, curving upward and forward. From his minute 
description of tne bird it was evidently one of the Little Crested Auks, 
apparently Simorkynckus cristatellus — a. bird he had otherwise never seen 
or heard of, but which he very accurately described. That the bird was 
one ofthe Little Crested Auks there can be no doubt. 
The occurrence of such a bird on the Massachusetts coast is of couise 
entirely accidental and surprising. We have, however, the Tufted Puffin 
(Lunda cirrhata) recorded from Greenland and the coast of Maine, the 
Black-throated Guillemot ( Synthliborhamphus antiquus ) from Wisconsin 
(cf. Sennett, Auk, I, p. 98 ), and the Paroquet Auk ( Cyclorrhynchus 
psittaculus) from Sweden, showing that these Northwest Coast species of 
Alcidie are more or less given to wandering to points far remote fiom theii 
proper habitats. — J. A. Allen, American Museum of Natural History , 
New York City. Aak, 2, Oct. , 1885. p. 3 
