The Cassin Auklet 
cry. As one gives attention to an individual performer, however, and 
seeks to locate him in his burrow, the mystery and strangeness of it grows. 
The vocalist is complaining bitterly of we know not what wrongs. We 
must be within three feet of the noise as we stoop at the burrow’s mouth; 
the volume of it is ear-filling; yet its source seems furlongs off. Now it is 
like the squealing of a pig in a distant slaughter pen. We lift our heads 
Taken in Washington Photo by the Author 
CASSIN AUKLET. ADULT AND YOUNG 
and the stock yards are reeling with the prayers and cries of a thousand 
victims. And now the complaint falls into a cadence, “Let meee out , let 
meee out , let me out." A thousand dolorous voices take up the chorus. The 
uproar gets upon the nerves. Is this a bird lunatic asylum? Have we 
stumbled upon an avian mad-house here in the lone Pacific? And are 
these inmates appealing to the moon, their absent mistress? 
Nay, rather, it is the eternal infant. It is the voice of elemental 
hunger we hear, and we are powerless to answer. Oh, the unwearying 
importunity of the hungry child! Earth nor heaven shall forget him while 
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