Puffins are busy in all directions, digging out holes to lay their eggs in, or putting last year's burrows into thorough repair. Both parents join in the work of excavation, taking turns, and while the one is employed the other either sits with a most absurd expression of pompous self-satisfaction, like a fat little owl-faced page, in close attendance, or flits about in idle amusement in company with vast numbers of the temporarily unemployed. Though so short-winged and plump-bodied, they fly with singular speed, and wheel and circle with great grace; but it is when they dive that they are at their best. Regardless of height, they plunge head-foremost from their cliffs into the sea, and, using their wings just as if they were still in the air, literally fly under the water. But they never stay away long, for all their thoughts are in those little burrows on the cliff, and the constant flying to and fro of the anxious pairs, their whirlings in the air before settling and after rising, keep the air alive with noisy wings, and fill the scene with bustle and happy animation. So close sometimes are their nest-holes crowded that it is impossible to walk without putting the foot in them, and it even happens that these accommodating birds, when hard pressed for room, inhabit "semi-detached" holes, and live two families in one. But here too falls the shadow of the sea-eagle, and the poor parrots' nurseries, when the young ones sit outside their burrows, innocent of danger, pay heavy tribute to the paramount lord of the northern sky. No erne's nest is completely furnished unless it be strewn with puffins' beaks. "The fierce sea-eagle In port terrific, from his lonely eyrie (Itself a burden for the tallest tree) Looks down o'er land and sea as his dominion, Or from long chase ascending with his prey Feeds his eaglets in the noonday sun." Oddly enough, "the fierce sea-eagle" and the poor puffin find another connecting link, less strained than that of being the eater and the eaten, in the rabbit. The erne will often take up its quarters for a time near a warren, and the sea-parrots do the same; but their reasons are very different, for while the former goes among the coneys for its meals, the latter does so to borrow the use of their burrows. And they live together on apparent terms of amity, much as the burrowing-owl and the prairie-dog live together on the Texan wastes. [Illustration: PETRELS NESTING] "_Amidst the flashing and feathery foam_ _The stormy-petrel finds a home,_ _A home if such a place may be_ _For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,_ _On the craggy ice, in the frozen air,_ _And only seeketh her rocky lair_ _To warm her young and teach them spring_ _At once o'er the wave on their stormy wing._" BARRY CORNWALL.