FURTHER NOTES FROM LLEYN. 147 



among them. A dead Puffin, fresh and bleeding and half-eaten, 

 had probably fallen a victim to an immature Great Black-backed 

 Gull which was flying about, and a young Rabbit had doubtless 

 shared the same fate. The Peregrine is now only an occasional 

 visitor, but I have seen two eggs (from a clutch of four) which 

 were taken in the cliff in 1885. When I was writing the article 

 on the Puffin in ' British Birds, their Nests and Eggs,' and 

 treating of the attitude of this species when on the land, my 

 personal experience of the Puffin at its breeding stations had 

 been gained in situations where it was difficult to get close to the 

 birds. And, while I was convinced that the Puffin could and did 

 stand on its feet (as distinguished from the foot and tarsus), I 

 retained an impression that I had seen the Puffin resting on its 

 foot and tarsus. Also I could hardly avoid being influenced by 

 the very positive and definite statements in support of the latter 

 attitude (when the bird was standing still, at all events) to be 

 found in the standard works on ornithology,* and by the 

 numerous figures of the bird which I had seen.f I was therefore 

 obliged, in the work mentioned above, to confine myself to a 

 qualified statement on the subject. Last year, on looking over 

 my notes, I found that I had written down no exact statement 

 bearing on the matter ; but, feeling more and more dissatisfied 

 with the generally expressed view of the Puffin's attitude on land, 

 I paid especial attention to the point during my visit to Lleyn. 

 In addition to several less prolonged observations, I sat to eat 

 my lunch and smoke a pipe within from ten to fifteen yards of a 

 lot of Puffins sitting on a slope covered partly with very short 

 turf and sea-pink, and riddled with burrows. There is of course 

 no doubt that when standing still in its ordinary attitude the 

 Puffin stands on its foot (commonly speaking) alone, and not on 

 its foot and tarsus. In point of fact, the tarsus is frequently not 



* Yarrell's ' British Birds,' and Seebohm's 'British Birds.' 

 f Although photography has made known the real attitude of the Puffin 

 on land, very little notice has been taken of the erroneous way in which it 

 has been represented. The Puffin is wrongly represented in Yarrell ; Wood's 

 ' Natural History ' ; Morris's ' British Birds ' ; Bewick ; Mudie (Feathered 

 Tribes) ; Gould's ' Birds of Europe ' ; Booth's ' Eough Notes ' ; and ' British 

 Birds, their Nests and Eggs ' (1898). It is correctly delineated in Lord 

 Lilford's plate, and in Willughby's ' Ornithology ' the Puffin is figured with 

 the tarsi off the ground. 



