Mrd. At the further end of the hole the single egg is deposited : in size it nearly equals that of a ])ullet, 
but varies much in form, some being acute at one end, while in others both ends are equally obtuse. Its 
colour, when first laid, is white; but it soon becomes soiled from its immediate contact with the earth, 
no materials being collected for a nest at the end of the hurrow. The young are hatched after a month’s 
incubation, and are then covered with a long hlackish down above, which soon gives place to the feathered 
plumage ; so that at the end of a month or five weeks they are aide to quit the burrow and follow their 
parents to the open sea. Soon after this time, or about the second week in August, the whole leave our 
coasts on their equatorial migration On the water the Puffin is more wary than the Guillemot, 
generally taking wing or diving before a boat can approach within gun-shot. It flies rapidly, but not to 
any great distance at once, being obliged to employ its short and narrow wings to their utmost power for the 
support of its body, which is heavy in proportion to its dimensions.” 
“ By far the most abundant species in St. Kilda,” says Macgillivray, “ is the Puffin, which breeds in the 
crevices of the rocks as well as in artificial burrows in almost every situation, sometimes at a considerable 
distance from the water’s edge. It is taken by the fowlers in two ways, — when on the nest, by introducing 
the hand and dragging out the bird, at the risk of a severe bite ; and when sitting on the rocks, by a noose 
of horsehair attached to a slender rod, generally formed of bamhoo-cane. The latter mode is most successful 
in wet weather, as the Puffins then sit best upon the rocks, allowing a person to approach within a few 
yards ; and as many as three hundred may be taken in the course of the day by an expert bird-catcher . . . . 
The Puffin forms the chief article of food with the St. Kildians during the summer months, and is usually 
cooked by roasting among the ashes.” 
It has not been very clearly ascertained how far the Puffin proceeds in a northerly direction, or whether 
its range extends beyond the neighbourhood of the North Cape in Europe or the southern part of Green- 
land. I suspect that a nearly allied species, the Fratercula giacialh, takes it place in those regions ; for Mr. 
Alfred Newton, during his recent visit to Spitsbergen, found the bird so called, and not tbe present one, in 
that inhospitable country. On the authority of Professor Baird, I give the northern portion of America as 
one of the habitats of our bird. It appears to be the commonest species of the two in Iceland ; and in the 
Faeroes it is exceedingly abundant. 
The Puffin is subject to precisely the same kind of seasonal changes in its plumage as those which take place 
in the Auks and the Guillemots. The blaek throat-mark being peculiar to summer, the whole of the throat 
at the opposite season is either white or greyish white ; the colour of the bill, which is clear and vivid in the 
spring, becomes more clouded, and the yellow at the angle of the mouth less prominent or dilated. The bill 
of very young birds, while dressed in the first costume of black down, differs but little from that of the 
young Guillemot; but it soon begins to resemble that of the adult; it is not, however, until the second year 
that it attains the full normal form. For what particular purpose can the strong hooked claws of this bird 
have been given to it ? Is it for clinging to the branches of seaweed and corallines during its search for 
crustaceans and other aquatic creatures at the bottom of the deep, or to enable the bird to excavate the 
hole for the deposit of its egg ? I think the former is the more likely reason, because the bird does not, 
I believe, confine itself to fish, although it is upon that kind of food that its newly hatched young are mostly 
fed. How often have I seen a lengthened row of silver sprats hanging from the beak of an old bird, when 
flying in a straight line just above the surface of the water towards the rocks, upon Avhich the young were 
patiently waiting ! How evenly were they arranged along the bill, from the gap to the tip ! How beau- 
tifully they glittered in the sun ! 
The Plate represents an adult, and a young bird of a week old, of the natural size. The distant scenery 
is intended to represent one of the “ rookeries ” of Guillemots and Razorbills, which, with Puffins, make 
up the general mass. The bird in the air is the Peregrine Falcon. 
