The Horn-billed Puffin 
consent to the shameless imbecility of “Rhinoceros Auklet.’’ Or if, again, 
the urge of brevity shall force a compromise, we may suffer the name 
“Rhino,” which actually obtains widely, to pass muster as the colloquial 
designation of this unique and quite unmistakable species. 
Whatever may be the fashion 
of midsummer, the Rhino ap¬ 
pears off our coasts in fall 
and winter minus his horn. 
At such a time he be¬ 
comes solitary in his 
Taken on Destruction Island Photo by the Author 
A BLACK PINCUSHION 
CHICK OF HORN-BILLED PUFFIN 
habits and hunts well off-shore; or else haunts the rock-bound coasts of 
the Santa Barbara Islands. One we observed in mid-spring, April 14-17, 
1915, on Santa Cruz Island, which showed a slight tumescence at the beak, 
suggestive of the approaching horn, but no appearance of the nuptial 
plumes upon the sides of the head. This bird hunted anywhere from the 
water’s edge to a point a hundred yards off-shore. He was a stolid-looking 
creature, as motionless as a floating chip, when on the surface; but once 
below, he displayed the resolute energy of a torpedo. Once, he got caught 
in a breaking roller, and actually protruded for an instant from the wave’s 
green wall, but, somehow, he managed to turn tail to the air and to swim 
back out of sight. His work took him very close to the rocks, however, 
and at a point where the waves swept without breaking squarely, we 
1520 
