750 



PUFFIN 



ception are very plainly coloured, and the majority have a spotted 

 or mottled plumage suggestive of immaturity. The first Puff-bird 

 known to Europeans seems to have been that described by Marc- 

 grave under the name of " Tamatia" by which it is said to 

 have been called in Brazil, and there is good reason to think that 

 his description and figure — the last, comic as it is in outline and 

 expression, ha\dng been copied by Willughby and many of the 

 older authors — apply to the Bucco nuiculatm of modern Ornithology 

 — a bird placed by Brisson {Ornithologie, iv. p. 524) among the 

 Kingfishers. But if so, Marcgrave described and figured the same 



o, Malacoptila ; b, Monacha ; c, Chelidoptera ; d, Bucco maculata ; c, B. tamatia. 



(After Swainsoii.) 



species twice, since his " Makdtid " is also Brisson's " Martin 

 pescheur taclieU du Bresil." 



Mr. Sclater in his Alonograph divided the Family into 7 genera, 

 of which JBucco is the largest and contains 20 species. The others 

 are Malacoptila and Monadui each with 7, Nonnula with 5, Chelido- 

 ptera with 2, and Micronwnacha and Hapaloptila with 1 species each, 

 treating them precisely in the same way in 1891 {Cat. B. Br. Mus. 

 xix. pp. 178-208). The most showy Puff-birds are those of the 

 genus Monacha with an inky-black plumage, usually diversified by 

 white about the head, and a red or yellow bill. The rest call for 

 no particular remark. 



PUFFIN, the common English name of a sea-bird, the Frater- 

 cula arctica of most ornithologists, known, however, on various parts 

 of the British coasts as the Bottlenose, Coulterneb, Pope, Sea-Parrot, 

 and Tammy-Noyie, to say nothing of other still more local desig- 

 nations, some (as Marrott and Willock) shared also with allied 

 species of Alcidai, to which Family it has, until very lately, been 

 invariably deemed to belong. Of old time Puffins were a valuable 

 commodity to the owners of their breeding-places, for the young 



