Puffin, Coulterneb, Mullet, Sea Parrot, Pope, or Willcock, (Alca arctica, Linn.; Le Macareux, Buff.) s. A water-fowl; a kind of fish; a kind of fungus filled with dust.
The puffin weighs about twelve ounces, and measures twelve inches in length, and twenty-one in breadth. Its singular bill looks not unlike a kind of sheath slipped over both mandibles; and, from its appearance, the bird is not improperly named coulterneb, or knife-bill. At the base, where it is about an inch and a half in depth, it is rimmed with a white callous border, the two corners of which project above the brow, and below the chin. It is about the same in length, curved towards the point, compressed vertically, very flat, and transversely furrowed on the sides; the half of it adjoining to the head is smooth, and of a fine lead-coloured blue; the other part, to the tip, red: the nostrils are placed in long narrow slits, near the edge of the bill; the corners of the mouth, when closed, are curiously puckered, and form a kind of small star, or rose; the eyes are protected by small callous protuberances, both above and below; the edges of the eye-lids are crimson; irides grey; the chin and cheeks are white, bordered with grey—the latter much puffed up with feathers, which makes the head look large and round. From behind the corner of each eye the feathers are curiously separated, forming a narrow line, which reaches to the hinder part of the head: the crown of the head, hinder part of the neck, and upper part of the plumage, are black, and a collar of the same colour encircles the neck; the under parts are white; the tail consists of sixteen feathers; the legs are reddish orange.
The puffin, like others of the same genus, takes wing with great difficulty, and walks upon the whole length of the leg and foot, with a wriggling awkward gait. In tempestuous weather it takes shelter in caverns and holes in the nearest rocks, or in those made by the rabbit on the beach among the bent grass, in which it sits dozing, in snug security, till the return of the calm weather; for these birds cannot brave the storm, and it is not uncommon, when they have been overtaken by it, to find them drowned and cast on shore. Various kinds of fish, such as small crabs, shrimps, sprats, and also seaweeds, are said to be the food upon which they live; but it is evident from the structure, great strength, and sharpness of the bill, that they are furnished with powers to crush and pluck out other kinds of shell-fish, which ornithologists have not noticed.
The female makes no nest; she deposits her single whitish-coloured egg upon the bare mould, in a hole, dug out and formed in the ground, by her mate and herself, for that purpose; or in those which they find ready made by the rabbits, whom they easily dislodge. The parent birds are very attentive to their young, which they will defend to the last, by severely biting whatever enemy attempts to molest them, and will suffer themselves to be taken rather than desert them: and yet, notwithstanding this uncommon attachment, when the day of migration comes, the young, which are not able to fly, are left behind, and mostly perish of want, or are destroyed by birds of prey.
The bite of these birds is very severe: one sent to the author in a box, covered with netting, caught hold of the finger of a poor man, and brought away the fleshy part, as if it had been cut out with a knife; but they may be tamed, and soon become familiar. They are fed on fish and other animal substances.—These birds are spread over various parts of the northern world, and are met with on almost all the rocky cliffs on the coasts of Britain and Ireland, and on many of the surrounding isles, in immense numbers. They congregate in flocks of magnitude, regulated by the accommodations afforded them at their breeding places, at which they first assemble early in April, but do not settle to prepare for the business of incubation till May. They hatch their young in the beginning of July; from which time until nearly the middle of August, they are employed in returning and rearing their brood: when this is accomplished, the whole associated swarm leaves the place at once, and pursues its route to other regions, more suited to their future exigencies, there to spend the remainder of the varied year.
Astonishing emigration of puffins.—A most extraordinary event took place at the great island of Arran, lying at the mouth of the bay leading to Galway, in Ireland, some years ago. The stupendous cliffs to the southwest of the island, which, from time immemorial, had been the place of resort, or rather the natural habitation of such numbers of rock-birds or puffins, as is almost incredible, were at once deserted, on the 24th of June, by that entire species of fowl, which abandoned their nests, eggs, and young ones, and went off to sea. The like incident is said to have happened forty years before, and no reason whatever could be assigned for these most extraordinary derelictions.
Puffy, a. Windy, flatulent; tumid, turgid; out of wind.
Pug, s. A kind name for a monkey, or anything tenderly loved.