AUKS. 219 



young after the manner of the penguins, and the 

 young bird was accustomed to depend on its parents 

 for food long after it had attained its full growth. 



The most familiar of these birds is the Little Auk, 

 commonly called the Puffin (Fratercula arctica) , so well 

 known for its enormous and brightly coloured beak, 

 the orange stripes of which are retained long after 

 death, although their brilliancy is much dulled. 



In this bird the wings are well developed, so that 

 it is able to carry its prey out of the sea and bring it 

 ashore to its nest, which is usually made towards the 

 summit of a cliff. The Puffin breeds in burrows, 

 which it excavates for itself if it cannot find a de- 

 serted habitation of a rabbit, or cause one to be 

 deserted by turning the owner out, a nefarious feat 

 which it has been known to perform. Being a small 

 bird, and its wings not very large, it cannot carry large 

 fish through the air, but contents itself with little fish 

 somewhere about as large as an ordinary sprat. It 

 has a curious way of catching them all by the head, 

 and arranging them in a row along the side of its 

 beak, so that the look of the bird as it rises from the 

 water is not a little grotesque. In the centre of 

 Plate IV., the lower figure shows the bird diving in 

 chase of its finny prey, and the upper as rising and 

 carrying the sprats in its bill, as has just been 

 described. 



The reader will probably have noticed how closely 

 the Puffin follows the habits of many aquatic mam- 

 malia, finding its food in the water, and its home in a 

 burrow, which it digs in the bank. The labourers 

 say that the bird makes wonderfully deep galleries, 



