6 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



rats, the descendants of refugees from a wreck, but that 

 now there are but few rats left. Although I have heard 

 this story repeated by an old rabbit-trapper, who pre- 

 tended or imagined that he remembered the absence of 

 the puffins, I doubt if it is true; very likely it originated 

 from someone who visited the island at the wrong time, 

 unaware that the birds leave during summer. There are, 

 on other parts of the Welsh coast, islands which are less 

 accessible and further from watering-places, where the 

 puffin colonies are very much larger. On these islands 

 the birds are tamer, standing round the holes and flying 

 up and down, from and to the water, without much con- 

 cern; here the eggs are but a few feet from the entrance 

 of the burrows, and the birds, wheeling overhead, are 

 comparatively fearless. At Puffin the birds soon leave 

 the slopes; every few minutes one will dart from a hole 

 and fly straight to the water, where with crowds of com- 

 panions it swims at a safe distance ; they are shy. Many 

 of the eggs are ten or twelve feet down the burrows, 

 quite out of arm's reach in most cases. Constant persecu- 

 tion has had its effect both in numbers and habits. 



Most of the puffins breed on the western slopes, the 

 tunnels being under great masses of thrift, a wonderful 

 sight when the flowers are out. Old Squire Pennant's 

 description is quaint, but it contains many careful 

 observations. In it he says: "The slope is animated 

 with the puffin auk, which incessantly squall round 

 you, alight, and disappear into their burrows, or come out, 

 stand erect, gaze at you in a grotesque manner, then take 

 flight, and either perform their evolutions about you or 

 seek the sea in search of food." There are two note- 

 worthy points, the first being the words " stand erect." 

 Until recent years, even in Saunders' " Manual," the 

 puffin has always been represented as sitting on the 

 flexed legs or tarsi, like a guillemot ; really the bird stands 



