750 



PUFFIN 



ception are very plainly coloured, and the majority have a spotted 

 or mottled plumage suggestive of immaturity. The first Puff-bird 

 known to Europeans seems to have been that described by Marc- 

 grave under the name of " Tamatia" by which it is said to 

 have been called in Brazil, and there is good reason to think that 

 his description and figure the last, comic as it is in outline and 

 expression, having been copied by Willughby and many of the 

 older authors apply to the Bucco inaculatus of modern Ornithology 

 a bird placed by Brisson (Ornithologie, iv. p. 524) among the 

 Kingfishers. But if so, Marcgrave described and figured the same 



a, MALACOPTILA ; b, MONACHA ; c, CHELIDOPTERA ; d, Bucco MACULATA ; e, B. TAMATIA. 

 (After Swainson.) 



species twice, since his " Matuitui" is also Brisson's "Martin 

 pescheur tacliete~ du Bresil" 



Mr. Sclater in his Monograph divided the Family into 7 genera, 

 of which Bucco is the largest and contains 20 species. The others 

 are Malacoptila and Monacha each with 7, Nonnula with 5, CheMo- 

 ptera with 2, and Micromonacha and Hapaloptila with 1 species each, 

 treating them precisely in the same way in 1891 (Cat. B. Br. Mus, 

 xix. pp. 178-208). The most showy Puff-birds are those of the 

 genus Monacha with an inky-black plumage, usually diversified by 

 white about the head, and a red or yellow bill. The rest call for 

 no particular remark. 



PUFFIN, the common English name of a sea-bird, the Frater- 

 cula arctica of most ornithologists, known, however, on various parts 

 of the British coasts as the Bottlenose, Coulterneb, Pope, Sea-Parrot, 

 and Tammy-Norie, to say nothing of other still more local desig- 

 nations, some (as Marrott and Willock) shared also with allied 

 species of Alcidse, to which Family it has, until very lately, been 

 invariably deemed to belong. Of old time Puffins were a valuable 

 commodity to the owners of their breeding-places, for the young 



