THE TUFTED PUFFIN. 



905 



the subterniinal uncinatiun oi the iqiper mandible, and marks invariably, 

 but not conspicuously, a greater length of the member. 



A forty -five degree slope of soil is the characteristic nesting site of the 

 Pufiin. Here tunnels are driven at random to a depth of three or four feet, 

 and so close together that once, on Erin, by placing a foot in the entrance of a 

 burrow and fetching a compass, I was able to touch with the hands the 

 entrances of twenty-five others, apparently occupied. This may have been an 

 unusuall}' populous section, but reckoning at JTalf that rate, an acre of ground 



Hard or rocky soil is not shunned in prosperous 



would carry 2700 burrows 



Taken uu Larruil Islet. 



Photo by the Author. 



.\ NEST IX THE S.\L.^L BRUSH. 



colonies, but many eft'orts here are baffled outright and "prospects" are at least 

 as numerous as occupied burrows. Elsewhere the top soil on precipitous, cling- 

 ing ledges may be utilized, or else crannies, crevices, and rock-hewn chambers 

 In skirting a patch of salal brush, which grows almost down to the edge 

 of the clifif on the south side of Carroll Islet, we were interested to discover 

 that the Puffins had runways thru the brush from the barren edge, and that 

 they were depositing their eggs in grass- and leaf-lined hollows upon the 

 surface of the ground. The distance traversed by one of these runways 

 varied from three to ten feet and we noted eight eggs in such situations. 



