MOULT OF BILL IN THE PUFFIN. OT) 
“Tn the month of July, 1877, returning from an ornithological 
trip to the South of Spain, I was not contemplating an excursion 
to our coasts, when an opportunity occurred of shooting some 
Puffins at a favourable period. On July Ist one was sent to me 
in process of metamorphosis. The time was well chosen, and 
I could not refrain from going to study on the spot this remarkable 
phenomenon. A compatriot whose name is well known to 
ornithologists, my excellent friend M. E. Bonjour, was very anxious 
to accompany me. 
“On the 3lst August we visited the Ile de la Manche. To our 
great disappointment the Puffins were already gone. About thirty 
only, very wary, kept to the edge of the island, and we could only 
secure a couple in partial change. 
“ Without losing time, we crossed to the Ile de Ocean, round 
which we loitered for two days (Sth and 6th August). The colony 
was certainly not what it had been during the breeding season, 
but the birds were still so numerous there that we had soon to 
cease shooting to avoid unnecessary slaughter. 
“ Almost all the specimens which fell to our guns were in full 
metamorphosis. The beak of these birds, which in the spring 
forms a horny sheath, solid and homogeneous, was then in process 
of scaling off in pieces like plates of armour; the fine rosette at 
the gape and the red eyelids were shrivelled and discoloured; the 
horny plates in the ophthalmic region had in certain specimens 
fallen off, and in others were coming off; the feet, of a bright 
vermilion in the breeding season, had become orange; in fine, in 
some specimens the moult had already commenced (except in the 
wings and tail), and the birds would soon have been in their winter 
plumage. 
“In a word, the adult Larventauscher* were, under our very 
eyes, changing to what some authors consider the young of 
‘Mormon arctica and others the adult of Mormon grabe. 
* Brehm, in his ‘ Handbuch,’ calls the Puffin in one place Larventauscher, but 
elsewhere throughout he invariably spells it, like other authors, Larventaucher 
(without the s). Ifthe former spelling be right, one must conclude that the moult 
of bill in the Puffin is a phenomenon of which the fishermen of the Baltic have long 
before me been aware. The Larventauscher is in fact der vogel der seine Larve 
tauscht, i.e., the bird which changes its mask. As to the other name, Larven- 
taucher, it may signify strictly, der Taucher mit einer Larve versehen, i. e., the Diver 
with a mask—a name well suited to the bird; but every German reader will see that 
the composition is not very happy. It is not impossible, then, that the former is the 
