The Tufted Puffin 



Taken on the S. E. Farallon 



THE LANDING 



Pholo by the Author 



birds and the rabbits which swarm over the rocks. I have seen impulsive 

 bunnies which, fleeing from fancied danger and taking refuge in the first 

 burrow at hand, emerged more hastily than they went in. The Tufted 

 Puffin is a dangerous as well as a determined foe, and a bite from that 

 rugged beak will cut to the bone. 



Although equipped with so formidable a weapon, the birds, in digging 

 their burrows, appear to depend upon their feet. These are provided with 

 nails as sharp as tacks, and the "finish" of the nesting-chamber usually 

 exhibits a criss-cross pattern of fine lines. Upon a rocky islet known on 

 the charts as "Off Trinidad Rock" I found the Puffins nesting in a con- 

 glomerate rock in tunnels from three to six feet long. The conglomerate 

 must have been softer where not exposed to the air, but upon the exposed 

 surfaces near the orifice the cement had hardened, so that I could scarcely 

 dislodge a single pebble with my steel-shod pike. 



Long grass and dense thickets, as of salal, salmon-berry bushes, or 

 dwarf spruce, occasionally afford refuge to birds hard-pressed for room. 

 Here the Puffin, starting from some exposed edge, drives a tunnel through 

 the matted vegetation and deposits its egg upon the surface of the ground, 

 in shade almost as intense as that afforded by the earth itself. 



Only one egg is laid, dull white as to hue, with faint vermiculations 

 of brown and purplish. Because the nest-lining is of the scantiest, a few 

 salal leaves or bits of grass, the egg is often so soiled by contact with the 

 earth as to pass for dingy brown. 



1512 



