232 BIRDS. 



everything had disappeared so that nothing of any worth rewarded 

 my work. 



Wednesday the nth. I started off on a trip down the coast, but 

 not before having secured a specimen of the pintail duck {Dafila 

 acuta) that one of the men shot while it, with its mate, was feed- 

 ing in a shallow bay of the sea, in front of the house. It is very 

 rare in these parts, and seldom seen here, though not uncommon, I 

 believe, in parts of Newfoundland. 



Thursday the 1 2th. Passed into Blanc Sablon to-day ; the bay, 

 at its entrance, was full of birds of all kinds. I noted several spe- 

 cies of gulls and terns, including several jaegers, or what are often 

 called hagdowns or shearwaters, while ducks were plentiful, and the 

 pufifins or paroquets abounded in tens of thousands. Greenley 

 Island, at the entrance of the harbor, has always been a noted place 

 for these birds. They breed here in vast numbers, covering the 

 ground everywhere with burrows. There are now only two or three 

 places on this part of the coast where the puffin breeds in any num- 

 bers, and Greenley Island is one of them ; another place is the Para- 

 keetl Islands, in Bradore harbor. The bird seems now more 

 abundant at the former place. Though I visited the island, and 

 made personal observations there, I find that the ground was so 

 well and thoroughly gone over by Dr. Elliott Coues, some years 

 previous, that I give his description of this species, as covering the 

 ground in so complete and natural a manner that I am sure it can- 

 not fail to interest. Though I have seen and identified nearly all 

 of Dr. Coues' points here given, a few of them are new however. 

 He says : — " The habit of collecting in immense numbers at par- 

 ticular localities during the breeding season, so characteristic of the 

 whole family of Alcidae, is a trait exhibited in the highest degree by 

 the species now under consideration. With scarcely the exception 

 of the common murre, no bird of the family shows so preeminently 

 gregarious a disposition as does the Arctic puffin. Collecting, as it 

 does, in thousands, on particular islands of small extent, it becomes 

 a matter of astonishment that food can be procured in sufficient 



