Measurements have been made of the total electronic attenuation
α
, in the low temperature limit, of longitudinal ultrasound propagating along the <0001>, <10͞10>, and <11͞20> directions in pure magnesium, zinc and cadmium crystals. In magnesium this attenuation was obtained from data taken from 1.2 to 80 K and in zinc and cadmium from the application of the critical magnetic field in the superconducting state at 0.1 K. In the high-frequency limit
α
is proportional to the frequency of the sound
v
and values of
N
= lim (
α/v
) have been found by extrapolation from measurements between 30 and 450 MHz. For magnesium
N
= 0.20±0.01 dB cm
-1
MHz
-1
for all three propagation directions; in zinc
N
= 1.29, 0.143 and 0.067 dB cm
-1
MHz
-1
(±5%) for sound propagation along <0001>, <10͞10> and <11͞20> directions respectively. For cadmium the corresponding values are 0.99, 0.165 and 0.048 dB cm
-1
MHz
-1
(±5%). The anisotropy in
N
is partly due to elastic anisotropy and partly to the Fermi surface geometry. In zinc and cadmium, our measurements are in agreement with the Fermi surface due to Stark & Falicov (1967), in which the ‘butterflies’ and ‘cigars’ are absent. We have deduced average values of the deformation parameter
K
x
for magnesium, zinc and cadmium, using the theory of Pippard. We show that the deformation parameter for strains along the
c
-axis in zinc and cadmium is much greater than for strains in the basal plane, whereas magnesium is isotropic. Electron mean free paths
l
u
deduced from the ultrasonic data are compared with those obtained from resistivity measurements on our samples. Anisotropies in
l
u
are attributed partly to Fermi surface geometry and partly to small angle scattering.
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