resembling the feet in colour—of an orange-red, that is to say—and just within this ring there is a dot at one point of the iris, and a straight line at the other, both of which are really of a bluish or slaty hue, but have the appearance of being black. This line and dot form the base and apex respectively of a sort of little triangle, the sides of which are formed by a deep depression in the skin, and within it the eye is framed like a little miniature, and, as is sometimes the case with pictures, partly encroached upon by the frame, so that its circular shape is interfered with. The effect of the whole—for all these details blend together, and can only be distinguished with the glasses—is that the bird seems to have a triangular eye, and this bizarre appearance is heightened by another, and much deeper, line, or fold, in the feathers, which runs back from the base of the triangle till it meets, or tries to meet, the black feathers of the head and neck, in a little delta between the two. Hardly less wonderful than the eye are the cheeks—if one may call them so—those two sharply defined oval surfaces of light, shining grey, so smooth and polished that they do not suggest feathers at all, but look much more like little veneered panels of fancy woodwork, let into a framework of ebony. To all this the beak has been added, to give full and crowning effect to the idea that governed at the puffin's making, which was that it should be "as remarkable a figure of a bird as any in our country," or elsewhere.
