ALCADA. DoD 
impudent little fellows, quite equal in that way to a 
tame Jackdaw. I do not know whether they have 
ever been kept tame, but if they can be I should 
think they would prove most amusing. 
The Puffin feeds principally on fish, and I have 
often watched them busily engaged flying to and 
fro their nests at the top of some high cliffs to the 
water, carrying a small fish or two on each return 
journey for their young. To fish, Yarrell adds as 
part of their food, marine insects and small Crus- 
tacea. 
The Puffin is certainly the oddest-looking little 
fellow imaginable, with his big flat bill, which is 
very narrow on the ridge and very broad sideways: 
a rib at the base of the upper mandible and the soft 
part of the gape are yellow, then a large spot of 
bluish grey, the rest being much grooved and of an 
orange colour; the irides are pale grey; the eyelid 
orange; the top of the head, all the upper parts 
and a collar round the upper part of the breast are 
black; the whole of the face and chin white; the 
breast and all the under parts white also (in one of 
my specimens, probably a younger bird, the face is 
smoky white); the legs, toes and webs light orange. 
In a young bird of the year in my collection the bill 
is by no means so broad sideways, nor is the ridge 
so sharp; it is black, inclining to dullish grey at the 
base; atolerably large space from the bill to the eye 
and round the eye is nearly black; the rest of the 
3BQ 
