864 ALCAD.E. 



At this period I have frequently obtained specimens, by 

 thrusting my arm into the burrow, though at the risk of 

 receiving a severe bite from the powerful and sharp-edged 

 bill of the old bird. At the farther end of this hole the 

 single egg is deposited, which in size nearly equals that of 

 a Pullet. The length two inches three lines, by one inch 

 and seven lines in breadth. Its colour when first laid is 

 white, sometimes spotted with pale cinereous, but it soon 

 becomes soiled and dirty ii-om its immediate contact with 

 the earth, no materials being collected for a nest at the end 

 of the burrow. The young are hatched after a month's in- 

 cubation, and are then covered with a long blackish down 

 above, which gradually gives place to the feathered plumage, 

 so that, at the end of a month or five weeks, they are able 

 to quit the burrow, and follow their parents to the open sea. 

 Soon after this time, or about the second week in August, 

 the whole leave our coasts." Pennant mentions that when 

 the time for migration arrives, such young birds as cannot 

 then fly are deserted. Puffins when on land rest on the 

 whole length of the foot and heel, as represented in the illus- 

 tration, and walk in consequence with a waddling gait, but 

 they fly rapidly for a moderate distance, and can swim and 

 dive well. They feed on marine insects, small Crustacea, and 

 young fish. I have seen old birds when they had a young 

 one to feed, returning to the rocks with several small fish 

 hanging by the head from the angle of the gape of the mouth. 

 Mr. John Macgillivray says that at St. Kilda many Puffins 

 are taken when sitting on the rocks, by means of a noose of 

 horse-hair attached to a slender rod of bamboo-cane. This 

 mode is most successful in wet weather, as the Puffins then 

 sit best upon the rocks, allowing a person to approach within 

 a few yards, and as many as three hundred may be taken in 

 the course of one day by an expert bird-catcher. They arc 

 caught for their feathers. 



