94 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS 



plunge down into the water and continue the flight below the sur- 

 face. On the surface they paddle along skilfully like little apo- 

 plectic short necked ducks and their small orange red legs are plainly 

 visible. Their diminutive tails are sometimes cocked up at an angle. 

 The tails are spread as they dive. 



On the land puffins walk with great dignity without resting the 

 tarsus on the ground, although this at times is done. Although the 

 tarsus is vertical, the body of the bird is sometimes as horizontal as 

 a duck's body, but at other times, as when anxious about the inten- 

 tions of a human intruder, the neck and body are both stretched up. 



The aerial flight of the puffin is rapid with swift beatings of the 

 little wings, and with frequent swaying or turning from side to side, 

 as is the case in all the Alcidae. Flocks wheel and turn together 

 with the regularity of shore birds, now showing their black backs, 

 now flashing out their white breasts and bellies. The similarity in 

 these habits between these two groups is doubtless explained by 

 their close relationship. Brewster (1883) thus describes the manner 

 of the descent of the puffin from the high cliffs of Byron Island: 



Launching into the air with head depressed and wings held stiffly at a sharp 

 angle above their backs they would shoot down like meteors, checking their 

 speed by an upward turn just before reaching the water. 



In a strong wind puffins sometimes poise in the up currents on the 

 edge of a hill or cliff as motionless as a hawk under similar circum- 

 stances. As they alight in the water their feet are spread out on 

 either side with the toes wide apart, so that in the breeding season 

 the orange red webs make a brilliant display. They alight with a 

 splash and as a rule bend the head forward so that it momentarily 

 goes below the surface, but soon regain their balance and ride the 

 water lightly like ducks. 



The note of these birds as I have heard it in flight near its nesting 

 place is a low purring note, a purr-la-la-la. When struggling in the 

 hand they utter harsh croaks. Boraston (1905) says: 



As the bird flies, especially if returning to its burrow with fish, it utters a 

 peculiar sound a deep-throated, mirthless laughter, as it were, which may be 

 imitated by laughing in the throat with the lips closed. 



Edmund Selous (1905) says: 



The note of the puffin is very peculiar sepulchrally deep, and full of the 

 deepest feeling. Another note is much more commonly heard, viz, a long, deep, 

 slowly rising Awe, uttered in something of a tone of solemn expostulation, as 

 though the bird were in the pulpit. 



Audubon (1840) compares the cries of the young to the "wailing 

 of young whelps." Chapman speaks of a captive bird with a "hoarse 

 voice, half grunt, half groan," and some of the birds that Audubon 

 kept on board his vessel on the Labrador were "fed freely and were 



