252 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 
the breeding season, so characteristic of the whole family of Alcidat , is a trait 
exhibited in the highest degree by the species now under consideration. With 
scarcely the exception of the Common Murre. no bird of the family shows so 
pre-eminently gregarious a disposition as does the Arctic Puffin. Collecting, as 
it does in thousands, on particular islands of small extent, it becomes a matter 
of astonishment that food can be procured in sufficient quantity to sustain 
them, or that each pair can find a place to deposit its egg. The pertinacity, 
too, with which they cling to the immediate vicinity of their breeding place is 
remarkable. But a very short distance from an island where there are thou- 
sands, it is a comparatively uncommon thing to see a Puffin. The most ex- 
tensive of these breeding places appears to be an island near the harbor of 
Bras-D’or, visited by Audubon in 1833, of which he has written so graphic and 
instructive an account. The one, however, that I had an opportunity of visit- 
ing cannot be much behind it in point of the numbers of the birds breeding on 
it ; and during a stay of three days I had ample opportunity of examining the 
island and noting the manners of its curious population. My visit was on the 
25th, 26th and 27th of July. Let a short extract from my journal describe our 
approach to the island. 
“ We were now within less than a mile from the island, towards which all 
eyes were anxiously turned, and still not a bird met our gaze. But a few 
minutes more, however, and they commenced to appear, flying round the boat 
or resting on the water ; all were 1 Parrakeets’ and ‘ Tinkers,’ except now and 
then a solitary ‘ Turre.’ They were tamer than I ever saw birds before, al- 
most flying between the masts of our little whale-boat ; it was hard to restrain 
from firing. As we rounded the island close to the shore, they came tumbling 
out of their holes by hundreds, and with the thousands we disturbed from the 
surface of the water, soon made a perfect cloud above and around us, no 
longer flying in flocks, but forming one dense continuous mass. And yet not 
a gun had been fired.” 
The Parrakeet Islands are three in number, lying along the western shore of 
Esquimaux Bay, just at its mouth. The one I visited is the innermost as well 
as the largest, though the others are equally crammed with the birds. It is 
about a mile in circumference ; in shape almost a perfect semicircle, with two 
points stretching out and enclosing a snug cove, where only can a landing be 
effected with safety. It is abrupt and precipitous on the three sides, the fourth 
sloping gradually down to the cove. The top is nearly flat, and covered with 
a rather luxuriant growth of grass, the soil being enriched by the innumerable 
droppings of the birds. The three sides in which the holes are dug are so 
steep and precipitous that it required considerable agility to scramble along 
them, the danger of falling into the water below being increased by the slip- 
periness of the soil, worn smooth by innumerable feet, and continually moist- 
ened with ordure. The sides are composed of soft loamy earth, with rocks of 
every size and shape jutting out in all directions, and afford the most favor- 
able possible conditions for the excavation of the burrows. The fourth side 
between the two points is composed mostly of masses of rock, in the crevices 
of which the Auks chiefly deposit their eggs, though they very often appro- 
priate the deserted holes of the Puffins. 
The holes in the ground in which the Puffins deposit their eggs, — a habit, 
as far as I am aware, entirely peculiar to the genus in this family of birds — 
are excavated by the birds themselves, an operation for which their powerful 
beaks and long strong and sharp claws admirably adapt them. They extend 
nearly or quite in a horizontal direction, and are subcircular in shape, with the 
diameter scarcely larger than is necessary for the free passage of a single bird. 
They vary much in length, but the majority are not so deep but that the egg 
may be reached by thrusting in the arm to its fullest extent. Their course is 
seldom in a straight direction ; they curve and wind in a most tortuous man- 
ner, many burrows being connected together by winding passages. The en- 
[Aug. 
