abundantly on tlie coast of Greenland up to 70° N. lat.
Southwards our form breeds on the Atlantic coast of America
down to the Bay of Fundy, migrating in winter as far as
Massachusetts. Returning to Europe : we find the Puffin
breeding on many of the small islands in the Channel group,
and on the coast of France, especially off Brittany. I jm
observing large numbers in the vicinity of the rocky Ber-
lengas Islands, near the mouth of the Tagus, on the 8th of
June, 1868, the Editor suspected that they bred there, and
this has since been proved to be the case. In the Meditertlie
wing-primaries rather the lightest in colour; all the
under surface of the body white ; legs, toes, and their membranes
orange. The female has a somewhat smaller bill than
the male. In size there is considerable variation between
specimens from the south and those from the far north.
The average length of those from Great Britain is twelve
inches, and of the wing six inches ; but in Spitsbergen
examples the wing is sometimes seven inches in length, the
bill being of proportionately large dimensions, and there
appear to be gradations between the two extremes.
The young bird differs from the adult in having the bill
smaller and not so high, the sides of the head are deeper
grey, and the space in front of the eye is sooty-black. In
some cases the dark face is still retained when the bird
begins to breed in its third year.
It had long been remarked, without any satisfactory explanation
being offered, that the old birds had much smaller
bills in summer than in winter. Owing to the investigations
of Dr. Louis Bureau,* it is now established that our
Puffin sheds portions of its bill and the palpebral ornaments
in atumn, the horny frontal sheath scaling off in pieces
like plates of armour, and being accompanied by atrophy
and loss of colour. Analogous changes have subsequently
been observed in several of the North Pacific species of the
family.
Varieties, more or less piebald, are not very uncommon,
and nearly perfect albinos are occasionally met with.
* Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, 1877, pp. 377-399; of which an abridged
translation was published in ‘The Zoologist,’ 1878, p. 233.