286 
PUFFIN 
Kione Eoauyr, however, they are perhaps most numerous, 
and in the season the agitated tideways of the Sound are 
dotted with their swarming multitudes. They are here very 
tame, and sit on the grassy burrowed verge of the brows 
within a few yards of the spectator. About Spanish Head, 
just opposite, they also nest in smaller numbers, and Mr. 
Graves in 1896 noticed a large colony amoog the fallen 
stones at the bottom of the cliff at the Chasms; and these 
are the only mainland stations where at least they are at all 
plentiful, though I have been told of a few on Bradda and 
on Peel Hill in the breeding season, and residents in 
Maughold think that a few, formerly at least, bred there. 
In winter the Puffin becomes extremely scarce, but we 
probably have a few off our coast at all seasons. They are 
reported at the Chickens in large numbers, with Eazorbills, 
on 30th March 1887. 1 
The Puffin breeds on Lambay, its only nesting place on 
the east of Ireland, and in vast abundance on Eathlin. It 
is not known to breed on the Galloway coast, though it 
possibly does so on the Scar. On the English side of the 
Irish Sea it does not breed, and is chiefly known from 
storm- driven specimens. There is a large colony on St. 
Tudwal's, and it nests in numbers on Priestholm and near 
the South Stack lighthouse, Holyhead. Its enormous colonies 
among the Scottish isles are well known. There are few 
stations on the south and east coasts of England, but many 
in western Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. 
1 Among a set of 1 unpublished sketches in the British Museum, supposed 
to date from the middle of the 17th century,' and of which there are copies 
in the Manx Museum at Castletown (a large number of them being views of 
Castle Rushen), are two of birds. One of these apparently represents a Puffin. 
The yellow beak, very long, is crossed by red bands, and the black head has a 
white spot before the eye, something after the fashion of that on the Great Auk. 
This picture has the legend, 'These kind of Birds are about the Isle of Man.' 
The other, ' A Landskip with Gaunts,' shows two Gannets, pretty well drawn, 
on a crag, and it is added, 1 being birds that mount like faulcons i' th' aire, and 
when they see their Prey strike into the water. ' 
