548 ALCID^. 



only a shuffling attempt at progress. Their vocation on 

 shore is, however, but a temporary one, and re(.j[uires no 

 great amount of locomotion. Soon after their arrival they 

 set to work about their nests. Fanciful people who class 

 birds according to their constructive faculty as weavers, 

 basket-makers, plasterers, and so on, would rank Puffins 

 among miners. Building is an art of which they are 

 wholly ignorant, yet few birds are lodged more securely. 

 With their strong beaks, they excavate for themselves holes 

 in the face of the cliff to the depth of about three feet, 

 and at the extremity the female lays a solitary egg — solitary, 

 that is to say, unless another bird takes shelter in the same 

 hole, which is not unfrequently the case. Puffins generally 

 show no overweening partiality for their ovv^n workman- 

 ship ; sloping cliff's which have been perforated by rabbits 

 are favourite places of resort; and here they do not at all 

 scruple to avail themselves of another's labour, or, if ne- 

 cessary, to eject by force of beak the lawful tenant. If the 

 soil be unsuited for boring, they lay their eggs under large 

 stones or in crevices in the rock. The old bird sits most 

 assiduously, and suffers herself to be taken rather than 

 desert her charge, but not without wounding, with her 

 powerful beak, and to the best of her ability, the hand 

 which ventures into her stronghold. 



The young are fed by both parents, at first on half- 

 digested fish, and when older on pieces of fresh fish. At 

 this period they suffer their colonies to be invaded without 

 showing much alarm, and are either shot, knocked down with 

 a stick, or noosed without difficulty. As soon as the young 

 are fully fledged, all the Puffins withdraw to southern seas, 

 where they pass the winter, and do not approach land until 

 the return of the breeding season. " A small island near 

 Skye, named Fladda-huna, is a great breeding haunt of 

 Puffins, a species which arrives in the earlier part of May, 

 literally covering the rocks and ledgy cliffs with its 

 feathered thousands. A.lthough these have no concern 



