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CHAPTER 2 = 
“BY ANY OTHER NAME”! 
At last I have been able to extract a young puffin 
from an all-turf hole, which, by reason of its 
straightness, shortness and narrowness, seems to have 
been made by the parent birds themselves, not merely 
found and appropriated by them. Comme zi est drdle, 
ce petit!—though not quite so comic as he will be 
by and by. Here we have a very salient example 
of the difference exhibited between the young and 
mature animal, in regard to some specially developed 
part or organ, since the beak of this baby is not only 
without the smallest trace of the colours which seem 
painted on that of its parents, but, to the eye at least, 
shows hardly anything of the mature shape, though 
measurement brings it out more clearly. It is of 
a uniform black, and hardly looks more than an 
ordinary beak when one thinks of the grown puffin, 
or rather when one looks at any of the hundreds 
standing all about. Though of a good size—some 
three-quarters grown perhaps—there are no true 
feathers on the body, at present—all fluffy, black 
above and whitish underneath. That this black, 
fluffy, colourless thing should ever become a puffin 
at all, seems wonderful. 
This is not the only little funny thing I have seen 
to-day. On my way back to the hut I saw an absurd 
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