50 THE AUKS 



auks ; it uses its wings, the legs being trailed behind, as in flight. 

 Whether the legs are used to help in turning or steering is not clear 

 from the evidence. I have personally seen them trailing only. In 

 its method of carrying the fish the puffin resembles the razorbill ; 

 it brings to the nest half a dozen or so at a time, the heads and tails 

 forming a fringe on either side. The guillemot and the black-guillemot 

 carry one fish held lengthwise. To catch and hold one fish is easy 

 enough, but how are the puffin and razorbill able to catch the second 

 fish without losing the first, or the third without losing the other 

 two, and so on ? l 



One explanation may be found in the fact that the palates of 

 the razorbill and puffin are furnished with rows of little pointed spines 

 directed towards the throat. Mr. C. J. King of St. Marys, Scilly, first 

 kindly drew my attention to the presence of these spines on the palate 

 of the puffin. It occurred to me that they ought to be present on the 

 palate of the razorbill. This I found to be the case, but I found it 

 also to be the case with the guillemot, which has no need of such an 

 apparatus, as, unlike its two congeners, it only catches and carries 

 one fish at a time. Further, I noted that all three species had the 

 spines at the posterior end of the tongue, and Mr. Pycraft, to whom I 

 sent the specimens, found that they had much larger spines a little 

 way down the throat, on either side and at the back. Neither here nor 

 at the back end of the tongue could the spines be of use for holding fish 

 carried in and across the bill. Palatal spines are found in nearly all 

 birds, though in some they are very small. It is the absence, rather 

 than the presence, of these excrescences that should excite comment. 

 Thus they seem to be absent among Accipitres, but present in the 

 Striges birds with precisely similar feeding habits. In the penguins, 

 some species of which feed largely on minute Crustacea, others on 

 fish, they are of huge size, especially on the tongue. 2 That the 

 spines have been developed for the purpose of giving a firm 



1 The usual length of the fish caught by puffins is three inches, but they may vary in size 

 from 2 to 6 inches. Zoologist, 1910, 41 (O. V. Aplin). " W. P. Pycraft (in litt.) . 



