53 § 
DIVING-BIRDS. 
generally frequenting sheltered bays when the weather is rough 
auk breeds as far south as California and Northern Japan. 
Among 
The horn-billed 
Puffins. 
KNOB-BILLED AUKS. 
the most 
grotesque of all birds are 
the puffins, or sea - parrots, whose 
enormous, compressed, and brilliantly- 
coloured beaks seem out of all pro¬ 
portion to the size of their heads. 
Represented only by the common 
Arctic puffin (Fratercula arctica ) in 
the Atlantic, the genus attains a greater 
development in that headquarters of 
the auk family, the Northern Pacific, 
where we meet with the horned puffin 
(F. corniculata), characterised by the 
great development of the horny process 
arising from the upper eyelid, and 
the handsome whiskered puffin (F. 
cirrhata), distinguished by the pendent 
crest of feathers at the back of the 
head, and the absence of grooves on 
the lower mandible. As a group, the 
puffins are distinguished from all the 
other members of the family by the claw of the second toe being considerably 
longer and more curved than the other two, as well as by the presence of a 
rosette-like prominence at the angle of the mouth. They are further characterised 
by the circumstance that 
the feathers at the base of 
the beak stop short of the 
nostrils, and likewise by the 
peculiarity that the basal 
portion of the greatly com¬ 
pressed beak is furnished 
during the breeding-season 
with one or more sheath-like, 
deciduous pieces of an 
orange-red colour which are 
shed in winter. The much 
compressed beak is shorter 
than the head, and consider¬ 
ably deeper than long, with 
the profile of both mandibles 
strongly arched, and the ridge of the upper one forming a sharp edge, while there 
are oblique transverse grooves on one or both mandibles. The common puffin may be 
compared in size to a teal, the average length in the southern portion of its habitat 
being about 12 inches, although in the Arctic regions it attains somewhat larger 
HEAD OF WHISKERED PUFFIN. 
(From Guillemard’s Cruise of the Marchesa.) 
