88 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS 



dable and must be handled with thick gloves, if at all. Their beaks 

 are powerful and sharp, they will bite at anything which comes 

 within reach and often hang on with such bulldog tenacity that 

 their strong jaws must be pried apart. They can inflict severe 

 wounds, biting through the flesh to the bone. 



Several writers have referred to the tufted puffin as quarrelsome 

 and noisy on its breeding grounds, where its notes are said to re- 

 semble the growling of a bear. I have always found it absolutely 

 silent, and believe that these references to its vocal powers are based 

 on hearsay or on confusion with the notes of auklets or other birds 

 occupying the same breeding grounds. 



Winter. After the breeding season is over and the young are 

 able to take care of themselves they all move away from their sum- 

 mer homes, to roam about on the open seas, where very little seems 

 to be known about their winter habits. I have seen this species 

 farther from land, by several hundred miles, than any of the other 

 Alcidae and suppose that they are widely scattered during the winter 

 over the north Pacific Ocean. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Breeding range. Coasts and islands of the North Pacific and 

 Bering Sea and portions of the Arctic Ocean. From California 

 (Santa Barbara Islands, rarely San Nicholas) and from Japan 

 (north end of Yezo) and the Kurile Islands north to northwestern 

 Alaska (Cape Lisburne) and northeastern Siberia (Koliutschin 

 Island). 



Winter range. In most of its range a permanent resident, but 

 northerly breeding birds winter somewhat south of their summer 

 home. Recorded in winter north to the Aleutian Islands. 



Spring migration. Migration consists principally of returning 

 to its nesting grounds from the near-by open sea. Birds arrive at 

 the Pribilof Islands about May 10 (occasionally as early as March 

 5), St. Michael June 8, Kotzebue Sound June 25 (or later), and 

 Gichiga River, Anadyr district, Siberia, May 1 to 15. 



Fall migration. Birds remain in northeastern Siberia, Anadyr dis- 

 trict, until October 15 (a few even later), and a specimen was taken 

 at St. Michael, Alaska, as late as October 12, Walrus Island, October 

 2, and St. Paul Island, December 8. 



Casual records. Reinhardt records a specimen taken in Green- 

 land and Audubon obtained and figured a bird from the mouth of 

 the Kennebec River, Maine. Records from the Bay of Fundy are 

 erroneous. 



Egg dates. Farallone Islands: 81 records, April 30 to July 8; 41 

 records, May 27 to June 17. Washington: 12 records, May 30 to 

 July 23; 6 records, June 19 to 27. Southern Alaska and Aleutian 

 Islands: 11 records, June 17 to July 18; 6 records, June 29 to July 7. 



