among them. A dead Puffin, fresh and bleeding and half-eaten, had probably fallen a victim to an immature Great Black-backed Gull which was flying about, and a young Rabbit had doubtless shared the same fate. The Peregrine is now only an occasional visitor, but I have seen two eggs (from a clutch of four) which were taken in the cliff in 1885. When I was writing the article on the Puffin in 'British Birds, their Nests and Eggs,' and treating of the attitude of this species when on the land, my personal experience of the Puffin at its breeding stations had been gained in situations where it was difficult to get close to the birds. And, while I was convinced that the Puffin could and did stand on its feet (as distinguished from the foot and tarsus), I retained an impression that I had seen the Puffin resting on its foot and tarsus. Also I could hardly avoid being influenced by the very positive and definite statements in support of the latter attitude (when the bird was standing still, at all events) to be found in the standard works on ornithology,[1] and by the numerous figures of the bird which I had seen.[2] I was therefore obliged, in the work mentioned above, to confine myself to a qualified statement on the subject. Last year, on looking over my notes, I found that I had written down no exact statement bearing on the matter; but, feeling more and more dissatisfied with the generally expressed view of the Puffin's attitude on land, I paid especial attention to the point during my visit to Lleyn. In addition to several less prolonged observations, I sat to eat my lunch and smoke a pipe within from ten to fifteen yards of a lot of Puffins sitting on a slope covered partly with very short turf and sea-pink, and riddled with burrows. There is of course no doubt that when standing still in its ordinary attitude the Puffin stands on its foot (commonly speaking) alone, and not on its foot and tarsus. In point of fact, the tarsus is frequently not
- ↑ Yarrell's 'British Birds,' and Seebohm's 'British Birds.'
- ↑ Although photography has made known the real attitude of the Puffin on land, very little notice has been taken of the erroneous way in which it has been represented. The Puffin is wrongly represented in Yarrell; Wood's 'Natural History'; Morris's 'British Birds'; Bewick; Mudie (Feathered Tribes); Gould's Birds of Europe'; Booth's 'Rough Notes'; and 'British Birds, their Nests and Eggs' (1898). It is correctly delineated in Lord Lilford's plate, and in Willughby's 'Ornithology' the Puffin is figured with the tarsi off the ground.
