in reply to @_ & @ARGV

@_ contains the arguments to the current (inner-most) subroutine, which is why the @_ in the inner subroutine is different from that of the outer subroutine. shift acts on @_ by default, which is why it gets the first argument to the inner-most function.

Strictly speaking,

my @list = @_; print @_, ' out return', "\n";

is the only content directly in sub formatlist, the rest is in an inner functio which has its own @_.