234 ALCID^. 



cover the ground, so tliat when on the arrival of a boat they all 

 come out of their holes, the green surface of the island appears 

 like a meadow thickly enamelled with daisies. The soil is so per- 

 forated by their burrows, that it is scarcely possible to take a 

 step on solid ground/'"^ 



Pennant remarks, with reference to Priestholm Island, off the 

 coast of Anglesea : — " The first young are hatched the beginning 

 of July, the old ones show vast affection towards them, and seem 

 totally insensible of danger in the breeding season. If a parent 

 is taken at that time, and suspended by the wings, it wiU, in a 

 sort of despair, treat itself most cruelly, by biting every part it 

 can reach ; and the moment it is loosed, will never offer to escape, 

 but instantly resort to its unfledged young : but this affection 

 ceases at the stated time of migration, which is most punctually 

 about the 11th of August, when they leave such young as cannot 

 fly, to the mercy of the peregrine falcon, who watches the mouths 

 of the holes for the appearance of the little deserted puffins, which, 

 forced by hunger, are compelled to leave their burrows." Tliis 

 passage is commented on by Mr. Blackwall, in connection with 

 the desertion of their young by the Ilirundines.^ The causes, as 

 they appear to me, which lead to such desertion, have been as- 

 signed in the first volume (p. 382) of the present work, and are 

 equally applicable to the puffin. Audubon remarks on the adults 

 that he " observed with concern the extraordinary affection 

 manifested by these birds to each other; for whenever one feU 

 dead or wounded on the water, its mate, or a stranger, imme- 

 diately alighted by its side, swam round it, pushed it with its bill 

 as if to urge it to fly or dive, and seldom would leave it until an 

 oar was raised to knock it on the head, when at last, aware of the 

 danger, it would plunge below in an instant." — 'Orn. Biog.' 

 vol. iii. p. 107. This author gives the fullest and most interest- 

 ing account of the puffin I have read. His opportunities of ob- 

 serving it, especially at Perroket island — (doubtless so called from 



* 'Western Isles of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 198. 

 t ' Researches in Zoology,' p. 121. 



