PUFFIN. 275 



PuflSn. Fratercula arctica (Linn.). 



No bird is more distinctive than the Puffin (Plate 120), and 

 it is an abundant species, yet few accounts of its appearance 

 and life history agree. It inhabits the Arctic seas and North 

 Atlantic, breeding as far south as Portugal, but though a few 

 birds remain off our shores all winter, there is a general south- 

 ward migration. Colonies are scattered on suitable cliffs or 

 islands round the British Isles, but there are only a few on 

 the east and south coasts of England ; some in Scotland, 

 Wales, and Ireland contain many thousand birds. 



It is not the black and white plumage, the large parti- 

 coloured bill, the upright carriage, nor the orange legs that give 

 the Puffin its quaint appearance, but its eye ; no bird has 

 caused more unjustifiable hilarity than this "big-nosed" 

 dumpy auk. Mr. F. Heatherley calls the- eye Chinese, but it is 

 not oblique ; it is set deeply above the round, full cheek, and 

 from it a conspicuous groove curves backward. Around the eye 

 is a crimson ring, above it a triangular steel-blue plate, and 

 below a small bar of the same colour. As we look at the serious 

 birds, for they do look very serious, standing in solemn rows at 

 the edge of the cliff or scattered over the thrift-grown turf 

 (Plate 122), we unconsciously smile, but do not realise that it 

 is the fixed expression caused by the eye that entertains us. 

 The Puffin is no clown, but a business-like, beautiful little auk ; 

 it is our conceited ignorance of serviceable avian proportions 

 which misleads us. From its deep but shapely bill the bird 

 receives semi-humorous names — " Pope," " Sea-Parrott," 

 '■ Bottlenose," "Tommy Noddie," or the more descriptive 

 " Coulterneb " ; there is something suggestive of the coulter 

 of a plough in its shape, but nothing to justify bottle-shape, 

 parrot bill, or papal. It can catch and hold a slippery fish and 

 nip severely. 



In March the far-scattered Puffins turn towards our islands, 



