ALCIDAE 



317 



Razorbills, and so forth, however, bite severely if handled, and 

 the first-named will fight with each other to the death. 



As will be seen, the colour of both sexes in summer is black 

 or dusky, varied by white, and occasionally brown ; the winter 

 plumage being duller and less decorative, and resembling the 

 garb of the young. The size varies from that of the Great 

 Auk to that of the Least or Knob-billed Auklet, the Family being 

 confined to the Palaearctic and ISTearctic Eegions. 



Lunda cirrata, the Tufted Puffin, ranging from South 

 California to Japan, and straying tcf Eastern America, is sooty 

 above and greyish below ; the sides of the head being white 

 anteriorly, a " rosette " of naked red skin adorning the gape, and 

 a nuptial tuft of long straw-coloured feathers hanging from above 

 each eye. The feet are red, and become flesh-coloured in winter. 

 The highly compressed bill is red in front and yellowish behind ; 

 while its base consists of three portions, separated from each 

 other and from the transversely grooved fore-part by furrows, 

 which deepen until the pieces become detached and expose a 

 soft brownish skin, that hardens again towards spring. Fratercula 

 arctica, the Puffin, occupies in vast numbers many of the pre- 

 cipitous coasts and islands of Britain, laying its large, dull white, 

 granulated egg — faintly marked with brown and speedily be- 

 grimed — in a rock-crevice, or a burrow, often made by the bird itself. 

 The upper parts and gorget are black, the cheeks greyish, the lower 

 surface white, the rosettes yellow, and the feet orange-red. The 

 base of the huge compressed and grooved bill, blue, yellow, and red 

 in colour, is shed in nine pieces towards winter, when the cheeks 

 become white, the rosettes reddish, and a blunt, fleshy, horn-like 

 appendage on the upper eyelid also disappears. This species 

 breeds northwards in the Atlantic, from the Bay of Pundy and the 

 Berlengas off the Tagus, and (as the larger form F. glacialis) 

 eastwards to Novaya Zemlya, migrating a little further south : in 

 the Pacific, F. corniculata, with longer horns and more developed 

 deciduous bill-sheath, takes its place. 



Cerorhyncha monocerata, the Ehinoceros Auklet of the 

 North Pacific and western North America, has a stout, curved 

 orange and black bill, with a large compressed horn between the 

 nostrils, and an accessory piece on the mandible ; the upper parts 

 are dusky, the lower whitish with plumbeous cheeks and throat, 

 while a row of narrow white feathers decorates each side of the 



