ALCADJE. 555 



impudent little fellows, quite equal in that way to a 

 tame Jackdaw. I do not know whether they have 

 ever been kept tame, but if they can be I should 

 think they would prove most amusing. 



The Puffin feeds principally on fish, and I have 

 often watched them busily engaged flying to and 

 fro their nests at the top of some high cliffs to the 

 water, carrying a small fish or two on each return 

 journey for their young. To fish, Yarrell adds as 

 part of their food, marine insects and small Crus- 

 tacea. 



The Puffin is certainly the oddest-looking little 

 fellow imaginable, with his big flat bill, which is 

 very narrow on the ridge and very broad sideways : 

 a rib at the base of the upper mandible and the soft 

 part of the gape are yellow, then a large spot of 

 bluish grey, the rest being much grooved and of an 

 orange colour ; the irides are pale grey ; the eyelid 

 orange ; the top of the head, all the upper parts 

 and a collar round the upper part of the breast are 

 black ; the whole of the face and chin white ; the 

 breast and all the under parts white also (in one of 

 my specimens, probably a younger bird, the face is 

 smoky white) ; the legs, toes and webs light orange. 

 In a young bird of the year in my collection the bill 

 is by no means so broad sideways, nor is the ridge 

 so sharp ; it is black, inclining to dullish grey at the 

 base ; a tolerably large space from the bill to the eye 

 and round the eye is nearly black ; the rest of the 



3 B2 



