THE GUILLEMOTS, DIVERS, AXD GREBES. 289 



take up different levels. The bird must occasionally seek 

 congenial food at some distance from its nesting -place, 

 for this summer there was a pair right through June and 

 July every morning under Bournemouth pier just after 

 sunrise. I used to go down at daybreak almost without 

 fail to get smelts and sand-eels for baiting with later in 

 the day, and there were these two diving birds, which had 

 also apparently learned that the small fish congregate in 

 the shelter of the weed-covered greenheart piles when 

 they were not to be found elsewhere in the bay. There 

 are, however, no cliffs in which these birds would care to 

 nest nearer than St Alban's Head on the one hand and 

 Hengistbury Cliff on the other, the latter fully three or four 

 miles away, the former indeed considerably more. It is 

 therefore to be presumed that the birds had some means 

 of conveying food to their young, but where they stowed 

 it, unless in their mouth, I do not know. The only other 

 assumption was that there were no young to feed, though, 

 as the birds were of different size, therefore presumably of 

 opposite sex, there seemed, considering the time of year, 

 slight ground for such a sup230sition. This bird is about 

 the same size as the equally familiar guillemot, but the 

 bill is conspicuously humped at the end, and the back is of 

 a deeper black. It also floats at the surface with its tail 

 cocked, like most of our ducks. In taking wing from their 

 nesting-ledges, all these birds drop sheer from a great height, 

 then suddenly sweej) up in a curve just when they seem 

 about to fall into the water. Like the guillemot, this bird 

 lays a single large egg, which it also incubates lengthwise. 

 Egg, 24 inches ; brownish-white, with dark blotches. 



The Guillemot is an equally familiar bird, with long 



straight bill and brown plumage. There is a "ringed" 



^ .„ variety having conspicuous white lines round 



Guillemot. .. ^ -r.\ ^ i i i j t 



the eye. It breeds on rocky ledges, and I 



have had eggs from every county between Hampshire 



and the Land's End (including the Isle of Wight), but 



T 



