14 
AUKS, MURRES, AND PUFFINS 
At Monterey Mr. Loomis has found comparatively few Cassin 
auklets near land, but reports them as common off shore, especially 
on the ocean. In July he has found eggs and young birds on the 
Farallone Islands, and in one case discovered an auklet sharing its 
apartment with two rabbits. The numbers of these birds on the 
islands was impressively shown one night during Mr. Loomis’s visit. 
At sundown he saw several flocks flying high overhead and at two 
in the morning awakened to find the bird population in an uproar. 
Although it was pitch dark the voices of the auklets — which he com¬ 
pares to those of whip-poor-wills — filled the air till the whole island 
appeared to be alive with birds. 
GENUS CYCLORRHYNCHUS. 
17. Cyclorrhynchus psittaculus (Pall.). Paroquet Auklet. 
Bill dark red, high, and thin, with sickle-shaped lower mandible curved 
upward. Breeding plumage: throat and upper 
parts sooty black ; under parts white ; a white line 
from lower eyelid back over ear ending in a thin 
white crest. Winter plumage and young: throat 
as well as rest of under parts white. Length: 9.00- 
10.40, wing 5.40-6.00, bill .60. 
Distribution. — Coasts and islands of the north 
Pacific from the Kurile Islands and San Francisco 
Bay to Sitka, and northward. 
Egg. — 1, pure white, deposited in a deep chink or crevice. 
When sailing across Bering Sea, on the way to Norton Sound, Mr. 
Nelson’s vessel was stopped and held by the pack ice. When the 
ice at last opened, he says, the water became covered by thousands of 
the strange little auklets, and as long as the ship was in the ice the 
only sounds beside the grinding of the cakes and the roar of the 
waves were the low whistled notes of the parrot and crested auklets, 
myriads of which surrounded the boat, “ swimming buoyantly from 
side to side or skurrying away from the bow of the vessel.” On the 
Fur Seal Islands the birds were again encountered, this time breed¬ 
ing on the cliffs, feeding at sea and returning to their nests and 
mates on the islands. 
Fig. 34. 
GENUS SIMORHYNCHUS. 
20. Simorhynchus pusillus (Pall.). Least Auklet. 
Size very small; bill with knob at base ; crests of slender white feathers 
in front and back of eye. Breeding plumage: upper parts 
blackish, mixed with white on scapulars; under parts white, 
irregularly spotted or mottled with dusky, often forming 
a dusky band across chest. Winter plumage: under parts 
and sides of neck pure white; face crests usually less de¬ 
veloped. Young : similar to winter adults but with more white on scapu¬ 
lars and without the white face feathers. Length: 5.50-7.20, wing 3.50- 
4.00, hill .35-40. 
Fig. 36. 
