GUILLEMOTS. 



521 



In all the following genera the feet are 3-toed. 



GUILLEMOTS. (Uria, Briss. Alca, Linn.) 



With the bill moderate, or short, robust, straight, acute and 

 compressed, the base feathered ; upper mandible convex, somewhat 

 curved at the point, notched ; the lower slightly navicular ; the mar- 

 gins of both sharp and inflected. Nostrils nearly basal, lateral, 

 concave, longitudinal, linear, pervious, covered partially by the 

 feathers of the front advancing far on the bill. Tongue linear, acute, 

 entire. jftTea^Z depressed, narrowed before, and rounded behind, neck 

 short. Feet placed very far back, the lower extremity only of the 

 tibia apparent ; tarsus one fourth shorter than the middle toe, 

 slender, compressed, carinated anteriorly : webs not very broad. 

 JVails compressed, somewhat curved, acute ; the middle one larger, 

 dilated internally into a sharp edge. Wings short, narrow and 

 acute ; the 1st primary longest. Tail very short, rounded, composed 

 of 12 feathers. 



The plumage of the sexes similar, but the female smaller. The 

 young differing from the adult, but almost similar to their winter 

 dress. They moult twice in the year, changing the colors of their 

 plumage ; which is generally in masses of black and white. 



The Guillemots and other birds of this natural order, forming a 

 sort of final link in the chain of the feathered tribes, with their 

 ignoble mein, and furtive habits, seem condemned to dwell, or rather 

 to animate the most dreary wastes of the Arctic and polar regions. 

 Surrounded by an eternal winter, and dwelling amidst barriers of 

 ice which deny existence to almost every other animal, they seek 

 refuge on the bosom of the ocean, where they perpetually reside, and 

 only relinquish this their natural element, at the important 

 season of reproduction. Under the brilliant sky of the still chilling 

 hyperboreal summer, they take possession of the desert islets, and 

 lofty and precipitous rocks near the sea, in whose clefts they are 

 seen crowding with discordant din, and swarming like bees. In haste 

 to secure their precarious progeny, they sit immediately on their 

 only egg, and, without the trouble or delay of providing a nest, they 

 hatch upon the naked rock. The ocean is their softest bed, they 

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