a bird of the auk family. It is related to the grebe and the loon, and more closely to the murre. There are several species, varying from six and one-half to seventeen inches in length. The puffin has a huge, triangular, gorgeously colored beak that gives it a look of clownish wisdom. On land it sits up on its short tail in an awkward, solemn fashion. In water it dives with loon-like rapidity in pursuit of fish, on which it feeds. The puffin nests in deep rock crevices, or, failing these, and, in fact, usually, at the end of a burrow excavated in a sand cliff. A single white egg is placed in a rounded depression about three feet from the face of the cliff. Sentinels are placed to notify a nesting colony of the approach of danger. If an arm be thrust into a burrow to take a surprised puffin, it grasps with its bill, like a parrot, and holds on like an owl. The common puffin is found along the shores of the Atlantic from Maine and Scotland northward. The wings are weak; the tail, scanty. The side of the face, breast, and abdomen are white. The rest of the plumage is of a jet black. In size the puffin resembles a small duck. The tufted puffin is found on the Pacific coast. It has black plumage, a white eye and cheek patch, and, in the breeding season, a soft flowing tuft of yellow feathers curving backward from above each eye. The enormous bill is of a bright red and olive green. See AUK.