LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIEDS. 101 
or old would scramble forward and thrust their great beaks into the first 
crevice which offered, although not an inch wide, and then they would push 
and struggle desperately to force their way through until taken in hand. Even 
when they managed to escape after being dragged out they would frequently 
scramble back to the same place again. It was a common occurrence for them 
to strike among the rocks with a thud as they tumbled off their perches toward 
the water, and then scramble over the rocks with laughable haste and finally 
plunge under water and make off, or go flapping desperately along the gurface 
until exhausted. Overhead circled hundreds of the birds, nearly all of which 
carried fishes in their beaks for their young. These fishes were sticklebacks 
and sand lances. Some of the birds carried from three to five small fishes at 
once; the latter were all placed side by side crosswise in the bird’s bill. 
Mr. Turner (1886) gives us another chapter in the story, as 
follows: 
The young leave the nest before being able to fly. The parent assists them to 
the water; and, should they have been reared on the face of a high bluff, the 
cld bird catches the young one by the wing and they flutter at a long angle 
to the water. The old bird endeavors to keep under the young one. I have 
seen them drop their young accidentally and cause great consternation of the 
parent, which could not check her flight immediately, but returned and showed 
great solicitude by turning the young one over and over in the water to see if 
it was injured. During severe storms the young are taken to the lee of some 
reef or islet until the waves become quiet. 
Plumages——The downy young of the horned puflin is practically 
indistinguishable from that of the common puffin; the central belly 
portion is white, sometimes tinged with yellowish or light gray; the 
upper parts, the throat and the crissum are light “seal brown” 
with “drab” shadings; in some specimens the upper parts are 
“ Prout’s brown ” or “ Vandyke brown.” The progress of the molts 
and plumages is the same as in the eastern species except that in the 
first winter plumage, which follows the natal down, the loral and 
orbital dusky space is darker than in arctica and nearly as dark as 
the crown; the black throat of corniculata is also acquired with the 
first plumage. Young birds can be distinguished from adults dur- 
ing the first year by the much smaller and slenderer bill, which does 
not reach its full development until the second spring. After the 
first. postnuptial molt, when the young bird is about 13 or 14 months 
old, it assumes the adult winter plumage. 
The adult has a complete postnuptial molt in August or September 
and probably a partial prenuptial molt in the spring. The dark 
face is characteristic of the winter plumage, but the-most striking 
change is in the bill, which molts as in the common puffin. Mr. 
Nelson (1887) describes this molt, which takes place in September, 
as follows: . 
At this time the bill molt was just commencing. The first evidence of this 
process is shown by the wearing away of the lower mandible on the under 
surface at the angle. This’ wearing appears to be brought about by the fric- 
tion of this point on the rocks, as the birds use the projecting angle as a hook 
