SUMMER IN LLEYN. 43 



of the St. Tudwal's Puffins (according to the man who knows 

 the islands best, and in whose company I have visited them for 

 several years past) do not leave until the middle of September, 

 although most of them go by the middle of August.* But the 

 young must grow very fast, and no wonder when we consider the 

 amount of fish that is brought to them. The fish-fry (" seel ") 

 I saw brought in was of various sizes, from two or three inches 

 long up to six inches in some cases, but most of it seemed to be 

 about three inches long. With the glass I could make out that 

 some of it was Mackerel ; there were bits of this, too, lying 

 about. Sometimes three good big "seel" were brought, all on 

 one side of the bird's bill ; in other cases perhaps a thick bunch 

 of small ones hanging from both sides — six or seven certainly, 

 and possibly more. The "seel" were always held, as far as I 

 could see, just behind the gills, so that the head was on one side 

 and the body and tail on the other. When a Puffin loaded with 

 fish drops on the land it almost always bustles into its hole with 

 ludicrous haste — always when alighting among a crowd of birds 

 — fearing robbery perhaps, though I saw no attempt at it. At 

 other times they will stand still for a while before going in, and 

 sometimes they pitch a yard or two from the hole and walk or 

 run to it ; but usually they pitch at the mouth of the hole and go 

 in at once. If you are standing too near a hole the bird does 

 not alight, but flies away again, describing a wide circle over 

 the sea, and comes back past the place. It will sometimes do 

 this as often as half a dozen times, always flying the same circle 

 and arriving from the same direction. Then they either give it 

 up and settle on the sea, or, overcoming their distrust, drop and 

 run into the hole. When the Puffin rises from the land it first 

 puts its feet together under it, not in an attitude of prayer, but 

 rather as with "unctuous palms," but almost at once extends 

 them at the side of the tail, and then gathers them (spread) at 

 the sides of and partly under the tail. When alighting it 

 straddles them widely. There was very little sound about the 

 warren. Sometimes I heard underground a long-drawn, very 

 grating "owk" or "ow"; or perhaps a long-drawn "ooooo," 

 somewhat like one of the nocturnal calls of the cat, i.e. the 



* In 1906 the keeper of the lighthouse wrote that they " left about the 

 15th August, rather earlier than usual." 



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