94 BULLETIN 107, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
plunge down into the water and continue the flight below the sur- 
face. On the surface they paddle along skilfully like little apo- 
plectic short necked ducks and their small orange red legs are plainly 
visible: Their diminutive tails are sometimes cocked up at an angle. 
The tails are spread as they dive. 
On the land puffins walk with great dignity without resting the 
tarsus on the ground, although this at times is done. Although the 
tarsus is vertical, the body of the bird is sometimes as horizontal as 
a duck’s body, but at other times, as when anxious about the inten- 
tions of a human intruder, the neck and body are both stretched up. 
The aerial flight of the puffin is rapid with swift beatings of the 
little wings, and with frequent swaying or turning from side to side, 
as is the case in all the Alcidae. Flocks wheel and turn together 
with the regularity of shore birds, now showing their black backs, 
now flashing out their white breasts and bellies. The similarity in 
these habits between these two groups is doubtless explained by 
their close relationship. Brewster (1883) thus describes the manner 
of the descent of the puffin from the high cliffs of Byron Island: 
Launching into the air with head depressed and winds held stiffly at a sharp 
angle above their backs they would shoot down like meteors, checking their 
speed by an upward turn just before reaching the water. 
In a strong wind puffins sometimes poise in the up currents on the 
edge of a hill or cliff as motionless as a hawk under similar circum- 
stances. As they alight in the water their feet are spread out on 
either side with the toes wide apart, so that in the breeding season 
the orange red webs make a brilliant display. They alight with a 
splash and as a rule bend the head foreward so that it momentarily 
goes below the surface, but soon regain their balance and ride the 
water lightly like ducks. 
The note of these birds as I have heard it in flight near its nesting 
place is a low purring note, a purr-la-la-la. When struggling in the 
hand they utter harsh croaks. Boraston (1905) says: 
As the bird flies, especially if returning to its burrow with fish, it utters a 
peculiar sound—a deep-throated, mirthless laughter, as it were, which may be 
imitated by laughing in the throat with the lips closed. 
Edmund Selous (1905) says: 
The note of the puffin is very peculiar—sepulchrally deep, and full of the 
deepest feeling. Another note is much more commonly heard, viz, a long, deep, 
slowly rising Awe, uttered in something of a tone of solemn expostulation, as 
though the bird were in the pulpit. 
Audubon (1840) compares the cries of the young to the “ wailing 
of young whelps.” Chapman speaks of a captive bird with a ‘ hoarse 
voice, half grunt, half groan,” and some of the birds that Audubon 
kept on board his vessel on the Labrador were “ fed freely and were 
