1903 Correspondence 185 



whether they always stand as shown in these photos, or if earlier in the 

 season they take up a position more like the razorbill in the other photo. 

 I am told also that they partially shed their beaks soon after the breed- 

 ing season, and should like to ask if this beak is specially adapted for 

 holding the small fish which they seem to bring in great quantity for 

 feeding their young." — Thomas TAIT, Broomend, Inverurie, Scotland. 



(We have much pleasure in reproducing Mr Tait's interesting photo- 

 graphs of puffins {Fratcrcula arctica) taken at Clo Head in Sutherland. 

 Also photos of the razorbill {A lea torda) and the kittiwake (Rissa tri- 

 dactyla), the last two taken at Handa, Sutherland. We shall be glad to 

 hear from correspondents who have observed these birds in nature as to 

 the position they usually take up. As photographs cannot lie in a 

 question of this sort, it is certain that puffins do stand sometimes as 

 here represented. The point is, whether this standing attitude is due 

 to alarm at the sight of an intruder and is a prelude to flight or move- 

 ment, or whether the birds naturally assume this position when at rest. 

 The puffins in Mr Tait's photo appear as if they decidedly had their eye 

 upon the photographer. With regard to the bill being shed, Mr Seebohm 

 in his ' History of British Birds ' says : "After the autumnal moult the 

 sheath of the basal half of the bill is cast, as are also the warty red skin 

 round the gape and the appendages above and below the eye." F. G. 

 Aflalo in 'British Vertebrates,' p. 291, says: "Instead of putting on 

 smarter courting plumage, it grows a larger bill at breeding-time, and 

 that protuberance becomes, moreover, brightly streaked with red and 

 gold. In autumn this attraction is shed piecemeal." The coloured 

 plate of the puffin in Lord Lilford's ' Birds of the British Islands ' shows 

 these colourings, and represents the bird as more standing than sitting. 

 Richard Kearton in ' With Nature and a Camera ' has an illustration of 

 four puffins, one of which is certainly standing ; in the other three it is 

 not easy to say whether the tails are touching the rock or not, as they 

 are facing the camera and apparently looking at the artist. 



A full description of the changes which the beak and the palpebral 

 appendages of the puffin undergo was published in the ' Zoologist ' of 

 July 1878, to which our readers are referred for detailed information of 

 this interesting process. — Ed. F. N. Q.) 



The Green-backed Gallinide. — " Mr Bird's very interesting article on 

 this bird (Porphyrio smaragdotiotus) prompts me to send you the record 

 of a specimen shot in Rutland. A very handsome gallinule of this 

 species was killed at Lyddington, Rutland, on the river Welland, on 

 March 5, 1898, and is now well mounted and in the possession of Mr 

 Manton of Lyddington. Neither the year nor the month agrees with 

 those mentioned in Mr Bird's article, but the bird may have been a 

 straggler from the same migration. Otherwise our bird will be a 

 wanderer from the Duke of Bedford's waters at Woburn." — Reginald 

 Haines, Uppingham, Rutland. 



Local and Common Names for Animals, — " In addition to the names 

 referred to by Mr Bevir (F. N. Q., vol. ii. pp. 23, 24) the following may 



