240 COMMON OR ARCTIC PUFFIN. 



and is of a very slender form, with a beautiful silvery hue, existed in vast 

 shoals in the deep water around the island. The speed with which the 

 birds flew made the fish incline by the side of their neck. While flying the 

 Puffins emitted a loud croaking noise, but they never dropped the fish, and 

 many of them, when brought down by a shot, still held their prey fast. I 

 observed with concern the extraordinary affection manifested by these birds 

 towards each other; for whenever one fell dead or wounded on the water, 

 its mate or a stranger immediately alighted by its side, swam around it, 

 pushed it with its bill as if to urge it to fly or dive, and seldom would leave 

 it until an oar was raised to knock it on the head, when at last, aware of the 

 danger, it would plunge below in an instant. Those which fell wounded 

 immediately ran with speed to some hole, and dived into it, on which no 

 further effort was made to secure them. Those which happened to be 

 caught alive in the hand bit most severely, and scratched with their claws at 

 such a rate that we were glad to let them escape. The burrows here com- 

 municated in various ways with each other, so that the whole island was 

 perforated as if by a multitude of subterranean labyrinths, over which one 

 could not run without the . risk of falling at almost every step. The voices 

 of the young sounded beneath our feet like voices from the grave, and the 

 stench was extremely disagreeable, so that as soon as our boats were filled 

 with birds we were glad to get away. 



During the whole of our visit, the birds never left the place, but con- 

 stantly attended to their avocations. Here one would rise from beneath our 

 feet, there, within a few yards of us, another would alight with a fish, and 

 dive into its burrow, or feed the young that stood waiting at the entrance. 

 The young birds were far from being friendly towards each other, and those 

 which we carried with us kept continually fighting so long as we kept them 

 alive. They used their yet extremely small and slender bills with great 

 courage and pertinacity, and their cries resembled the wailings of young 

 whelps. The smaller individuals were fed by the parents by regurgitation, 

 or received little pieces of fish which were placed in their mouths; the 

 larger picked up the fish that were dropped before them; but almost all of 

 them seemed to crawl to the entrance of the holes for the purpose of being 

 fed. In all the burrows that communicated with others, a round place was 

 scooped out on one side of the avenue, in the form of an oven; while in 

 those which were single, this oven-like place was found at the end, and was 

 larger than the corridor. All the passages were flattish above, and rounded 

 beneath, as well as on the sides. In many instances we found two birds 

 sitting each on its egg in the same hole. 



The Puffin never lays more than one egg, unless the first may have been 

 destroyed or taken away; nor does it raise more than a single young one in 



