838 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
dable and must be handled with thick gloves, if at all. Their beaks 
are powerful and sharp, they will bite at anything which comes 
within reach and often hang on with such bulldog tenacity that 
their strong jaws’ must be pried apart. .They can inflict severe 
wounds, biting through the flesh to the bone. 
. Several writers have referred to the tufted puffin as quarrelsome 
and noisy on its breeding grounds, where its notes are said to re- 
semble the growling of a bear. I have always found it absolutely 
silent, and believe that these references to its vocal powers are based 
on hearsay or on confusion with the notes of auklets or other birds 
occupying the same breeding grounds. 
Winter.—After the breeding season is over and the young are 
able to take care of themselves they all move away from their sum- 
mer homes, to roam about on the open seas, where very little seems 
to be known about their winter habits. I have seen this species 
farther from land, by several hundred miles, than any of the other 
Alcidae and suppose that they are widely scattered during the winter 
over the north Pacific Ocean. 
DISTRIBUTION. 
' Breeding range—Coasts and islands of the North Pacific and 
Bering Sea and portions of the Arctic Ocean. From California 
(Santa Barbara Islands, rarely San Nicholas) and from Japan 
(north end of Yezo) and the Kuril Islands north to northwestern 
Alaska (Cape Lisburne) and northeastern Siberia (Koliutschin 
Island). . 
Winter range—In most of its range a permanent resident, but 
northerly breeding birds winter somewhat south of their summer 
home. Recorded in winter north to the Aleutian Islands. 
Spring migration—Migration consists principally of returning 
to its nesting grounds from the near-by open sea. Birds arrive at 
the Pribilof Islands about May 10 (occasionally as early as March 5), 
St. Michael June 8, Kotzebue Sound June 25 (or later), and Gichiga 
River, Anadyr district, Siberia, May 1 to 15. 
Fail migration —Birds remain in northeastern Siberia, Anadyr dis- 
trict, until October 15 (a few even later), and a specimen was taken 
at St. Michael, Alaska, as late as October 12, Walrus Island, October 
2, and St. Paul Island, December 8. 
Casual records—Reinhardt records a specimen taken in Greenland 
and Audubon obtained and figured a bird from the mouth of the 
Kennebec River, Maine. Records from the Bay of Fundy are er- 
roneous. 
Egg dates——Farallone Islands: 81 records, April 30 to July 8; 41 
records, May 27 to June 17. Washington: 12 records, May 30 to 
July 23; 6 records, June 19 to 27. Southern Alaska and Aleutian 
Islands: 11 records, June 17 to July 18; 6 records, June 29 to July 7. 
