PUFFINS, COME BACK!

After a jerky opening of scattered facts about puffins, Friedman tells of the ""reestablishment"" project conducted by ornithologist Stephen Kress and others concerned about the dwindling number of puffins on our North Atlantic coast. The experiment has involved taking puffin chicks from Newfoundland and raising them on Easter Egg Rock Island, off Maine. Friedman tells how the researchers fed, cared for, and studied the puffins, and how their efforts resulted in a higher survival rate than among naturally reared chicks. The hope is to establish a breeding colony on the island, as the sea-living birds characteristically return home to breed; and Kress has outfitted the island with wooden decoys and mirrors to encourage those who do. At Friedman's writing it was yet uncertain whether the first birds, reared in the mid-1970s, would in fact establish such a colony. The project has its interest, but the prematurity of Friedman's report, combined with her undistinguished and sometimes awkward writing, makes this an extra.