354 



THE O0L0G1ST. 



also very • tenacious of life, and unless 

 one is armed with a gun, to capture and 

 kill a Puffin is no easy matter. I once 

 saw a Greek egg-picker catch a bird in 

 its burrow aud attempt to kill it. He 

 wrung its neck and struck its head a- 

 gaiust a rock very forcibly but to no a- 

 vail, until a knife was used to sever an 

 artery. I shot several of these birds for 

 skinning purposes and found it required 

 hard hitting to kill them outright. 



The nesting habits of this species are 

 most interesting. They nest usually at 

 the end of natural burrows in the gran- 

 ite cliffs, varying in length from two to 

 live feet, They also are found at one 

 place on the Island where there are 

 numerous large bowlders gathered on 

 a hillside. Here the eggs are laid in lit- 

 tle depressions behind the^ rocks, gener- 

 ally out of sight of a passer-by. The Puf- 

 fins l'aise at least two and possibly more 

 young in a season, and the date of nest- 

 ing A^ai'ies with the seasons. 



One egg is laid at the end of the bur- 

 row, a few pieces of coarse, dry weed 

 generally being used as a nest. The 

 female Puffins sit very close, especially 

 as the egg advances in incubation. 

 While approaching burrows known to 

 be inhabited, and making considerable 

 noise by reason of scrambling about 

 among the rocks, I have seen the birds 

 come to the mouth of their tunnels and 

 and upon seeing me, take wing, In 

 these cases usually I secured fresh eggs. 

 Again I have peered into a long, dark 

 burrow to see the conspicuous white 

 face of the Puffin pointing toward me. 

 A writer has suggested this is a signal 

 of danger (to the collector). Generally 

 the birds would prove to be covering au 

 incubated egg or a young bird. 



A scoop is used to good advantage in 

 gathering the eggs from deep burrows 

 and is a much more comfortable means 

 of gathering the treasures than by 

 reaching in when Mrs. Puffiu is at home. 

 The Puffins have a reputation- of being 

 "stayers" if ouce they get the_fingers of 



an enemy in their powerful beaks. 

 This reminds me of one of the egg-pick- 

 ers who had a friend in San Francisco, 

 who possessed a lonely parrot. Having 

 heard of the "sea parrot 1 ' he suggested 

 that the egger bring him one as a mate 

 for his "Polly." This occurred to the 

 egg-picker as a capital joke, and he- 

 immediately secured one and it came in. 

 on the boat that we returned on from 

 the Island. It is safe to say that if the 

 recipient placed the "parrot" with his 

 domestic Polly, the latter did not sur- 

 vive long enough to secure an introduc- 

 tion to its cousin from the sea. 



Theyouug of the Tufted Puffin are 

 an eutire black in color, The Puffins, 

 subsist, I believe, eutirely upon lish 

 which they catch and do not eat eggs. 



The eggs of this species are somewhat 

 large for the size of the bird. They 

 show much variation as to size and. 

 markings and are pointed. Few eggs, 

 are found which can be called pure 

 white as most of them have deep shell 

 markings of a light lilac shade. I have 

 one egg which is spotted over the entire 

 surface. Another has a heavy wreath 

 about the large end, composed of wavy 

 blotches of light brown and lilac. In a 

 large series great variation is obtainable. 

 I should judge that the first part of 

 June is most favorable for fresh eggs, 

 as on the 20th almost all were badly in- 

 cubated aud a number of young were 

 found. 



On one cliff I came across the evid- 

 ence of a probably fierce battle. In a 

 burrow some four feet in length was a 

 Puffin sitting sedalely upon its fresh 

 egg. About one-half the way in was a 

 dead Cassiu's Auk!et, evidently having 

 beeu dead a day two and near by was 

 its single white egg. I inferred that 

 the Auklet had selected the burrow as 

 its home and was incubating its egg 

 when a ferocious Puffin came along, 

 "jumped the claim," murdered its al- 

 most helpless owner aud took possess- 

 ion. I took the Puffin's egg aud left, 

 the scene of the fray. 



