228 KEELER 



feet and webbed toes. When seated on the rocks they 

 assume an erect posture, and their small heads, set close 

 down upon their shoulders, look ridiculously insignificant 

 in comparison with their exaggerated beaks, which are 

 very much flattened sidewise and immensely spread out 

 from top to bottom. As if to heighten the comic effect, 

 the bill is brilliantly colored, and the stupid little face be- 

 hind it appears serenely unaware of its oddity. This great 

 beak is largely an appendage of the breeding season and 

 is cast like the antlers of a deer at the end of that period. 

 The tufted puffin is brownish-black above and dark gray- 

 ish-brown below, with a conspicuous white patch on the 

 side of the face. In the breeding season it is ornamented 

 with a long heavy fluff of pale yellow feathers extending 

 backward from the eye on each side of the crown, and its 

 great beak is scarlet with a dull yellow base. The horned 

 puffin is glossy-black above and white below, the white 

 extending up on the sides of the face. It has a small 

 leathery excrescence on the upper eyelid which has given 

 it its name, and its bill and feet are a brilliant red. 



The least auklet, one of the smallest of diving birds, is 

 very plainly attired, with its black back and white breast 

 varied with dusky mottlings. Its short, stout beak is 

 bright red, and it has a series of fine white hair-like plumes 

 on the sides of the head back of the eyes. In this same 

 group of diving birds are the murres, which inhabit the 

 entire Pacific coast from California to Bering Sea. The 

 murres are a foot and a-half or less in length, with long, 

 sharply pointed, and moderately stout beaks, well formed 

 for securing their funny prey. Their heads, throats, and 

 backs are a smooth, dark grayish-brown or brownish- 

 black in color, sharply contrasted against the white of the 

 underparts. The California murre has the top of the head 

 and the back of the neck smoky-brown, the same parts 

 being black in Pallas's murre. The latter species also has 



