LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 89 
FRATERCULA ARCTICA ARCTICA (Linnaeus). 
PUFFIN, 
HABITS. 
Contributed by Charles Wendell Townsend. 
The puffin is a curious mixture of the solemn and the comical. Its 
short stocky form and abbreviated neck, ornamented with a black 
collar, its serious owl-like face and extraordinarily large and bril- 
liantly colored bill, suggestive of the false nose of a masquerader, 
its vivid orange red feet and legs all.combine to produce such a gro- 
tesque effect that one is brought almost to laughter on seeing these 
birds walking about near at hand. The parrotlike appearance of 
the bill has earned the name of “ parroquet,” or “sea parrot,” by 
which it is known in Labrador and Newfoundland. Besides being 
grotesque it is singularly confiding or stupid, and it is this, it seems 
to me, that is leading rapidly but surely to its downfall and final 
extinction, unless refuges are created and respected where it can 
breed undisturbed. At the present time the most southerly breeding 
station is Matinicus Rock off the middle coast of Maine. Here only 
two pairs are left. The only other breeding place left on the coast 
of the United States is at Machias Seal Island. Here in 1904, ac- 
cording to Dutcher (1904), there was a colony of 300 of these birds. 
It is probable that the coast of Maine was formerly the resort of 
large numbers of this species. According to Knight (1908) a few 
pairs probably bred on Seal Island not far from Matinicus as re- 
cently as 1888. Audubon (1840), who visited the Bay of Fundy in 
1833, says it bred commonly on the islands in the bay “ although not 
one perhaps now for a hundred that bred there 20 years ago.” Now, 
they are nearly if not entirely extirpated. Macoun (1909) gives 
only one breeding locality for Nova Scotia, namely, Seal Island, 
Yarmouth County; but it is probable that a century ago the coast 
swarmed with these interesting birds. Along the Newfoundland 
coast the puffin is still to be found breeding, but in much diminished 
numbers, At Bryon Island in the Magdalen group and at Bird Rock 
puffins still breed, as well as at Wreck Bay, Anticosti, and elsewhere 
on this island. On the Labrador coast their numbers are rapidly 
diminishing. The westernmost of the Mingan Islands where auks, 
murres, gannets, and puffins formerly bred in great numbers, and 
which bear the name of the Parroquet Islands, are now almost devoid 
of bird life. The gannets have ceased to nest there and the puffins 
are almost wiped out. In 1906 we saw no puffins near these islands, - 
and in 1909 only two were to be seen. Near the eastern end of the 
Mingan group of islands is Bald Island. Here in 1906 we found 
about 150 pairs of puffins. At Wolf Island, near Cape Whittle, in 
