Sea & Shore Birds 



138 



incubation ; and in addition to all this, hundreds and 

 hundreds are constantly flying backwards and forwards, 

 or circling round with small and quickly-beating 

 pinions, their bright orange webbed feet straddled out 

 on each side of their short tails making them look like 

 mechanical toys. 



The brightly-coloured horny sheath assumed over 

 the bill proper, would seem to be an ornamental 

 appendage for the breeding season. 



The sheath is dropped with the autumnal moult, 

 and also the blue warty skin above and below the eye, 

 along with the yellow edging to the corners of the 

 mouth. 



Young puffins are most quaint little balls of dark 

 grey fluff, with white underparts. 



They are not unlike young chickens, such as those 

 of the black Minorca, &c. 



After a while they will toddle to the mouth of 

 the burrows in which they are hatched, there to await 

 the arrival of their parents with sprats and sand eels. 



The old birds fly up from the sea with quite a row 

 of small fish in their parrot-like bills — the silvery sand 

 eels glittering in the sunshine. If one sails through a 

 colony of puffins at sea, it is interesting to watch them 

 as they swim away, turning their heads from one side 

 to another to look at the approaching boat, and then 

 with a sudden header disappearing below the waves, 

 bobbing up serenely, some yards off, from below. 



When the Manx shearwaters are abroad in the 

 daytime, it is a striking sight to sail close to an in- 

 numerable company of what appear to be giant swifts. 



