538 



DIVING-BIRDS. 



Puffins. 



KNOB-BILLED AUKS. 



generally frequenting sheltered bays when the weather is rough. The horn-billed 

 auk breeds as far south as California and Northern Japan. 



Among the most 

 grotesque of all birds are 

 the puffins, or sea -parrots, whose 

 enormous, compressed, and brilliantly- 

 coloured beaks seem out of all pro- 

 portion to the size of their heads. 

 Represented only by the common 

 Arctic puffin (Fratercula arctica) in 

 the Atlantic, the genus attains a greater 

 development in that headquarters of 

 the auk family, the Northern Pacific, 

 where we meet with the horned puffin 

 (F. corniculata), characterised by the 

 great development of the horny process 

 arising from the upper eyelid, and 

 the handsome whiskered puffin (F. 

 cirrhata), distinguished by the pendent 

 crest of feathers at the back of the 

 head, and the absence of grooves on 

 the lower mandible. As a group, the 

 puffins are distinguished from all the 



other members of the family by the claw of the second toe being considerably 

 longer and more curved than the other two, as well as by the presence of a 

 rosette-like prominence at the angle of the mouth. They are further characterised 

 by the circumstance that 

 the feathers at the base of 

 the beak stop short of the 

 nostrils, and likewise by the 

 peculiarity that the basal 

 portion of the greatly com- 

 pressed beak is furnished 

 during the breeding-season 

 with one or more sheath-like, 

 deciduous pieces of an 

 orange-red colour which are 

 shed in winter. The much 

 compressed beak is shorter 

 than the head, and consider- 

 ably deeper than long, with 

 the profile of both mandibles 



strongly arched, and the ridge of the upper one forming a sharp edge, while there 

 are oblique transverse grooves on one or both mandibles. The common puffin may be 

 compared in size to a teal, the average length in the southern portion of its habitat 

 being about 12 inches, although in the Arctic regions it attains somewhat larger 



HEAD OF WHISKERED PUFFIN. 



(From Guillemard's Cruise of the Marchesa.) 



