I have sometimes wondered if the fish which the puffin catches so deftly, and then carries home, a dozen at a time, are paralysed at the sight of it. If a shoal of sand-eels fainted, and lay strewed about the bottom of the sea, it would then be easy for their enemy to pick them up one after the other, pack them securely, and get a firm grip on all of them before they began to revive and wriggle. At least, it ought to be easier; but how the bird chases and catches each in succession, without losing those it has already caught, and which lie in a row across its beak, it is not so easy to see. I have sometimes, I believe, made out a dozen, at the least—all sand-eels—closely wedged together along the cleft of the mandibles, their heads and tails hanging down on either side of the lower one. Perhaps, however, the difficulty is not so great as it seems to be—of understanding it, of course, I mean; it is no doubt easy enough for the bird to do. My theory, at any rate, of its modus operandi is this. The first sand-eel is, no doubt, passed to the base of the mandibles, and being firmly wedged against the membrane that unites them, I suppose that they are finally closed upon it. Were they opened again, at all widely, to catch the next and subsequent ones, there would be a danger of as many as were already there either escaping by their own efforts, or being floated out owing to the pressure of the water. But the beak of the puffin, though broad and leaf-like in its shape, is sharply tipped, and by opening it but a little, and pressing the fish against
