44 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



long "no," from a hole after a bird had gone in with fish, and 

 was perhaps crooning over the young one. There is a con- 

 siderable variation in the appearance of the old Puffins. In 

 some the legs are orange-coloured, and the back a hoary greyish 

 black ; these birds are smaller than some others. In the bigger- 

 looking birds the legs are of a full vermilion-red, and the back is 

 blacker. As to the grey on the face, one sees at this season all 

 degrees between its presence in full degree and its total absence. 

 One thing which must strike an . observer who visits a 

 Puffin-warren at this season is the number of birds he will 

 see standing about idle, with apparently nothing to do, even 

 at this the most busy time of the Puffin's year.* It may 

 fairly be advanced, it is true, that the Puffin which brings to 

 its young one, when it does come back, such a good weight 

 of solid fish has no need to be coming and going all day 

 long like a Blue Tit, which brings at each visit nothing more 

 satisfying than a flabby caterpillar or an unsubstantial fly. We 

 may even allow that the parent Puffins who brought their fluffy 

 young ones nice bunches of fish of this morning's catching may 

 fairly be entitled to be now (11 a.m.) idle, and to pass the day, 

 like a lot of longshore fishermen, sitting in a row (with a careful 

 eye on the offing), until possibly, as evening comes on, the 

 demands of the growing ball of down make it necessary to once 

 more go a-fishing. But even if we were to go further, and even 

 allow or suppose that each parent has only got to bring a bunch 

 of fish once in a day (and, indeed, this would amount to a fair 

 allowance), and could then go off duty, it would hardly seem to 

 account for the presence of all these idle-looking Puffins. But 

 scanning the serried ranks of the birds with the glasses I was 

 struck with the difference in colouring and size mentioned above. 

 And these smaller, duller birds, if they are really as yet imma- 

 ture and non-breeders, would solve the question of why so many 

 Puffins in the breeding season always seem to be standing all the 

 day idle. But young or old, there they stand in crowds, im- 

 movable, silent, Sphinx-like, staring out to sea, or turning a 



* It was Edward Pugh who wrote of Priestholm in 1804 as " literally 

 half covered with those indolent birds called Puffins." In those days Puffins 

 were pickled and put into barrels of twelve inches long, which sold for three 

 or four shillings each ('Cambria Depicta'). 



