ALCID.^— PUFFIN. 



279 



JMi". Philip Marriage, of Broomfield Mills, Chelmsford, who shot it there about 

 ten or fifteen years ago, during an extensive flood. One was caught alive on 

 the deck of one of the Great Eastern Railway Company's steamers while lying 

 alongside the pier at Dovercourt on Dec. 3rd, 1878 (Kerry — 40. iii. 182). About 

 the middle of Dec, 1879, during severe weather, one was obtained by a gentleman 

 on the marshes atDedham (Chelmsford Chronicle, Dec. 19), and another was shot on 

 the River Roach on Nov. 27th, 1883, by Mr. Chas. Wiseman, of Paglesham {Chelms- 

 ford Chronicle, Dec. i). An Essex specimen is among the birds collected by the 

 late Col. Russell. The Rev. J. C. Atkinson writes me, " I have seen the Little 

 Auk at sea, when shooting under sail. We had one astern of us one day within 

 six or eight yards for many minutes." Mr. Hope has one, picked up alive in a 

 starving and exhausted condition on the main, in Jan., 1880, after a heavy gale 

 with snow. One, which was not preserved, was killed off the Maplin Sands in 

 Oct., 1883 (Baxter). Mr. Stacey, of Dunmow, preserved one caught alive at that 

 place on Nov. 20th, 1884. During a severe N.E. gale on Nov. gth, 1873, one ^'^'^s 

 taken alive among the pigeons on a farm near Walton (29. Nov. 15). 



Puffin : Fratercula arctica. 



To be met with on the seas round our coast during autumn, win 

 ter and spring, but not common. 



Mr. Hope describes it as com- 

 mon in winter in Essex. At 

 Harwich, Mr. Kerry says some 

 are seen every year. Mr. J. F. 

 T. Wiseman informs me that he 

 met with it when Wild-fowl- 

 shooting on the Tillingham 

 Main in the winter of 1853-54, 

 Dr. Bree (32a) mentions young 

 specimens shot at Mersea in 

 Dec, 1874, and on the Stour in 



PUFFIN, 1/7. 



Nov., 1869. One was shot on {After Beimck). 



the Thames between Erith and Gravesend on June \2th, 1885 (R. Fortune — 40 

 ix. 263). Both the time and place of capture are remarkable, but on the same 

 page Lord Lilford records the capture of a Puffin in one of the bedrooms of Sir 

 John Walrond's house in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, on May i6th._ 



