burrows. When an intruder approaches a colony of these birds, they will, 

 as a rule, take wing long before he gets near; but let him stand still among 

 the burrows, and the birds will alight quite fearlessly within a few feet of him. 



The food of the Puffin is chiefly composed of small fish, principally the 

 fry of herrings and young cod-fish, but they also take large quantities of 

 small sea insects, and occasionally molluscs. Like its relations, the Puffin 

 often flies immense distances to feed, returning in the evening to its colony. 

 Just before sunset bunches of them may be seen winging their way swiftly 

 homewards just above the surface of the water, with whirring wings. It is 

 a strangely silent bird before its eggs are hatched, and even in enormous 

 colonies not a sound is to be heard except the rush of thousands of wings. 

 If seized in its hole and dragged out, it utters a hoarse grating noise, 

 which may be represented on paper by the syllable ' aaam ' or ' ooom.' But 

 when the young are being fed the note is much softer, and may be heard 

 proceeding from the burrows all round, like the purring of hundreds of cats. 



The Puffin commences breeding operations in May, eggs being generally 

 laid about the end of the first week of that month. They arrive at their 

 breeding-stations about the beginning of April rather later in more northerly 

 localities ; about the end of the month they are busy at work overhauling their 

 burrows, or excavating new ones, and by the middle of May the nesting 

 season is in full swing. The Puffins always breed in colonies, sometimes 

 only composed of twelve or fourteen, often of as many thousands. Both 

 birds help in making the burrow and building the nest. In some localities 

 the Puffins make their own burrows, undermining the soft, loose soil ; in 

 others the deserted burrows of rabbits are used, while in still other places the 

 nests are made among the masses of broken rocks and ddbris at the foot 

 of some cliff. When the colony is on a cliff the burrows are usually along 

 the top or on the grassy ledges and slopes among the rock faces. The 

 Puffin's burrow is usually some three or four feet long, sometimes longer 

 and sometimes shorter, and often branching out into three or four passages, 

 all the inhabitants using the same entrance-hole. At the end of the burrow 

 a slight hollow is formed, which is lined with a little dry grass, roots, large 

 feathers, or pieces of sea-pink, and on this the single egg is laid. 



When first laid the egg is pale bluish white in ground-colour, faintly 

 spotted or streaked with underlying markings of purple grey and pale brown, 

 but it very soon becomes discoloured by contact with the bird's wet feet and 

 the soil of the burrow in which it is laid, often becoming thickly caked with 

 mud or peat by the time it is ready to hatch. On some specimens the spots 



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