Fratercula arctica
This watercolour of the Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) was painted by Charles Collins in June 1742 and forms part of the Taylor White Collection, a series of 18th Century natural history watercolours held in the McGill University Library.
The Atlantic Puffin is one of three puffin species found across the North Atlantic, nesting in large, densely packed colonies on coastal cliffs and offshore islands. Rather than building an open nest, puffins burrow into soft clifftop soil or take over abandoned rabbit burrows, raising a single chick each season in the shelter below ground. Pairs are thought to return to the same burrow year after year, often reuniting with the same mate.
Description of the Puffin
Its most distinctive feature is the brightly banded bill, which develops its vivid orange, yellow and grey colouring for the breeding season before the outer plates are shed once the season ends, leaving a smaller, duller bill through autumn and winter. This dramatic seasonal change, together with its black and white plumage and vivid orange legs, has earned the puffin the affectionate nickname “sea parrot” and made it one of the most recognisable seabirds of the British and Irish coastline.
Puffins are accomplished swimmers as well as fliers, using their wings to “fly” underwater in pursuit of small fish such as sandeels and sprats, which they carry back to their chicks crosswise in their bills, sometimes dozens at a time. Outside the breeding season, they range far out into the open Atlantic, spending the winter months entirely at sea.
Monastic Naming of the Puffin
The genus name Fratercula is derived from the Latin for “little friar”, a reference to the bird’s black and white plumage, said to resemble monastic dress. Collins’s watercolour captures the puffin with the close observational detail typical of the period’s natural history illustration, made at a time when accurate depictions of British wildlife were still relatively rare and largely undertaken for private patrons rather than published works.
c.1680 - 1744
Charles Collins (c.1680-1744) was a painter of birds, mammals and still life, born in Dublin and trained in Ireland before establishing himself in London. He built his early reputation on still-life subjects, including a series of fruit studies for Robert Furber's Twelve Months of Fruit (1732), before turning increasingly to natural history illustration. From 1736, Collins worked alongside Peter Paillou to produce watercolours of British birds and mammals for the naturalist and collector Taylor White, contributing over 200 signed works to White's collection. His animal studies are noted for their lifelike composition, typically set against a grassy mound or tree stump rather than a plain background, and for the accuracy with which plumage and colouring were recorded from live or preserved specimens. Collins died in London in 1744, described at the time as Bird Painter to the Royal Society.
Credit: Taylor White Collection, Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University Library.