AUKS, MURRES, PUFFINS 



(Family Alcida>) 



Puffin 



(Fratercula arciica) 



Called also: SEA PARROT; COULTERNEB; MASKING 

 PUFFIN 



Length — 13 inches. 



Male and Female — Upper parts blackish ; browner on the head 

 and front of neck. Sides of the head and throat white ; some- 

 times grayish. Nape of neck has narrow grayish collar. 

 Breast and underneath white. Feet less broadly webbed 

 than a loon's. Bill heavy and resembling a parrot's. In 

 nesting season bill assumes odd shapes, showing ridges and 

 furrows, an outgrowth of soft parts that have hardened and 

 taken on bright tints. A horny spine over eye. Colored 

 rosette at corner of mouth. 



Range — Coasts and islands of the North Atlantic, nesting on the 

 North American coast from the Bay of Fundy northward. 

 South in winter to Long Island, and casually beyond. 



Season — Winter visitor. 



Few Americans have seen this curious-looking bird outside 

 the glass cases of museums; nevertheless numbers of them strag- 

 gle down the Atlantic coast as far as Long Island every winter, 

 from the countless myriads that nest in the rocky cliffs around the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy. Unlike either grebes 

 or loons, puffins are gregarious, especially at the nesting season. 

 In April great numbers begin to assemble in localities to which 

 they return year after year, and select crevices in the rocks or bur- 

 row deep holes like a rabbit, to receive the solitary egg that is the 

 object of so much solicitude two months later. Both male and 

 female work at excavating the tunnel and at feeding their one 

 offspring, which has an appetite for fish and other sea-food large 

 enough for a more numerous family. By the end of August the 



18 



