BRADORE BAY AND PERROQUET ISLAND 



and southern sides of this tableland are cliffs 

 twenty or thirty feet high with great slabs of 

 rock broken from the cliffs lying below. Every- 

 where in the soft reddish-black soil formed by 

 the disintegration of the sandstone are the 

 nesting-burrows of the puffins. These are to be 

 found not only on the high land of the interior, 

 but on the low shore-shelf, and one must watch 

 his steps with care in this difficult ground. Some 

 of the puffins Aest under or among the blocks of 

 stone, and here they are as secure as the razor- 

 billed auks that lay their eggs in the same re- 

 gions. I dug out one of the burrows in the soft 

 soil and found it four feet long. It was about 

 a foot below the surface during the first half of 

 the course and descended to a depth of nineteen 

 inches at the end. Here was a loose nest made 

 of feathers and eel-grass in which was an old 

 bird and a young. The young was a charming 

 baby — a fluffy ball of black down with a white 

 breast, and a small black bill. The old bird 

 with its great parrot-like beak, scarlet, blue, and 

 white in color, and its solemn spectacled face, 

 went flopping over the ground when I released 

 it, and shortly afterwards took wing. Many of 

 the holes had been dug out, and I learned that 

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