"In the month of July, 1877, returning from an ornithological trip to the South of Spain, I was not contemplating an excursion to our coasts, when an opportunity occurred of shooting some Puffins at a favourable period. On July 1st one was sent to me in process of metamorphosis. The time was well chosen, and I could not refrain from going to study on the spot this remarkable phenomenon. A compatriot whose name is well known to ornithologists, my excellent friend M.E. Bonjour, was very anxious to accompany me.
"On the 31st August we visited the Ile de la Manche. To our great disappointment the Puffins were already gone. About thirty only, very wary, kept to the edge of the island, and we could only secure a couple in partial change.
"Without losing time, we crossed to the Ile de l'Ocean, round which we loitered for two days (5th and 6th August). The colony was certainly not what it had been during the breeding season, but the birds were still so numerous there that we had soon to cease shooting to avoid unnecessary slaughter.
"Almost all the specimens which fell to our guns were in full metamorphosis. The beak of these birds, which in the spring forms a horny sheath, solid and homogeneous, was then in process of scaling off in pieces like plates of armour; the fine rosette at the gape and the red eyelids were shrivelled and discoloured; the horny plates in the ophthalmic region had in certain specimens fallen off, and in others were coming off; the feet, of a bright vermilion in the breeding season, had become orange ; in fine, in some specimens the moult had already commenced (except in the wings and tail), and the birds would soon have been in their winter plumage.
"In a word, the adult Larventauscher* were, under our very eyes, changing to what some authors consider the young of Mormon arctica and others the adult of Mormon grabæ.
Brehm, in his 'Handbuch,' calls the Puffin in one place Larventauscher, but
elsewhere throughout he invariably spells it, like other authors, Larventaucher
(without the s). If the former spelling be right, one must conclude that the moult
of bill in the Puffin is a phenomenon of which the fishermen of the Baltic have long
before me been aware. The Larventauscher is in fact der vogel der seine Larve tauscht, i.e., the bird which changes its mask. As to the other name, Larventaucher, it may signify strictly, der Taucher mit einer Larve versehen, i.e., the Diver
with a mask — a name well suited to the bird; but every German reader will see that
the composition is not very happy. It is not impossible, then, that the former is the
