86 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
Plumages.—The young when first hatched is completely covered 
with long, soft, silky down, sooty black above and sooty grayish be- 
low. It remains in the nest until it is at least partly fledged; in the 
juvenal plumage the feathers of the belly are largely white, but or- 
dinarily these white feathers are soon replaced by those of the first 
winter plumage. In this plumage the upper parts are blackish and 
the under parts dark brown, but the feathers of the belly are whitish 
basally; young birds during the first winter can be readily distin- 
guished from adults by their smaller, weaker, bills without the 
grooves, by their brown irides and by the entire absence of the crests 
or ear tufts. At the first prenuptial molt, which is only partial, the 
face becomes partially white, the first ear tufts, which are dull yel- 
lowish brown in color, are acquired, the irides become white and the 
bill is partially developed. At the first postnuptial molt, during the 
following August and September, the adult winter plumage is as- 
sumed by a complete molt. 
Adults have an incomplete prenuptial molt, involving at least the 
head and neck and perhaps much of the contour plumage, and a 
complete postnuptial molt. At this latter molt the white face and 
the long, flowing plumes of the nuptial plumage disappear, the 
cuirass or horny covering at the base of the bill is shed and the white 
irides become pale blue. In the winter plumage the face is wholly 
dark brown and the ear tufts or plumes are either entirely lacking 
or replaced by rudimentary dull yellowish plumes. Winter adults 
often have many white or gray-tipped feathers on the under parts. 
Food.—The food of the tufted puffin consists mainly of fish, such 
as smelts (sometimes 8 or 10 inches long), sardines, herring, and 
perch, which it catches by diving and swimming swiftly under water 
and which it carries crosswise in its bill. It also feeds largely on 
various mollusks, sea urchins, and other sea food, including algae. 
Its powerful beak is well designed for crushing the shells of mol- 
lusks and sea urchins. Most of its food is obtained at sea, for. which 
it often travels many miles. 
According to Prof. Harold Heath (1915) these puffins which are 
very abundant about Forrester Island, Alaska, make themselves a 
nuisance to the fishermen in that region; he writes: 
¥or fearlessness, pluck, and dash the tufted puffins have no equal on the 
island, and the maledictions and gaff hooks hurled at them during the fishing 
season were probably as numerous as the birds themselves. While their natural 
food consists almost wholly of sand launces, they are by no means averse to 
cleaning the bait from the fishermen’s hooks. For hours at a time they will 
follow a rowboat, and rarely indeed is a fisherman able to sink a line below 
their diving depth, or slip it into the water without detection. Fortunately 
not all of the puffins are engaged in this thrifty method of gathering food, and 
the boatman is usually able to cross some other fisherman’s path and switch the 
pest on to his trail. 
