Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/170

146 plumage, and had light-coloured feather edges. The entrance to this cave is narrow, and the bird could not make up its mind to pass us; so it remained where it was, shuffling its feet and shifting about uneasily. At last, when we came further in, it flew to a ledge on the other side of the cave, and then, as we landed on a shelf, slipped by us and darted out, being joined outside by another, which we had not noticed before. It had a pretty little twittering cry.

Puffins, on account of the constant bad weather, were very late in coming to the land in 1900. On May 17th I could see them, with a glass, sitting as thick as flies on parts of St. Tudwal's Island, but they had only that day returned to the island, having been away for five days because of the bad weather. Two days later, when I landed on the islands, the Puffins were in numbers on the land, and as I walked over the warrens many came out of their burrows, where they were very busy. One came out in such a hurry that it went head over heels down the slope. Grating cries of arrr and orrr came from below, probably from mating or quarrelling birds, and occasionally I heard a cry from birds sitting on the sea. I got my hand to the end of a lot of burrows, and caught several birds—once two in the same hole—but found no eggs, and only once some nest materials. Birds could be heard hard at work scratching in the burrows. Bearing in mind the statement that a Puffin underground will take hold of the hand introduced into the burrow, and suffer itself to be drawn out rather than let go, I gave several birds an opportunity of doing this; but, although I persistently fumbled my fingers about their beaks, I could not induce one to take hold. An experienced man, however, told me that the birds are much more savage, and "bite" better when they have young, or are sitting hard (but I have pulled out more than one sitting bird without getting bitten); otherwise I should have thought that possibly they did not bite much in the dark. For at all times, when they have been pulled out into the open, they bite, or try to bite, savagely, and scratch too, inflicting surprisingly severe wounds in the latter way. The Rabbits here (which are numerous and tame) are not at all afraid of the Puffins. As I sat at lunch close to a crowd of Puffins outside the burrows, I saw several young and old Rabbits come out and sit about