522 WEB-FOOTED BIRDS. 



scarcely seek repose upon the land, and their young, as themselves ^ 

 fed on fish, find an inexhaustible fare in their favorite element, to 

 which they are instantly conducted as soon as delivered from 

 the prison of their shell and their irksome exposure on the rocks. 

 Like the Divers, whose necessities scarcely call them to the land, 

 they walk with the utmost difficulty, and then only across some bar- 

 rier of ice ; but in the water they are as alert as they are impotent 

 on the ground. They swim and dive in a manner wholly unrivalled ; 

 pursuing their finny prey as if flying in the air, exercising their 

 wings in the water no less than their oar-like feet ; they dive even 

 beneath the ice, and thus find means to subsist in the most inclem- 

 ent season. In the extremity of the terrific winters which reign 

 in their natal regions, they, however, sometimes find a necessity to 

 migrate to the open seas of the colder parts of the continent, but 

 their presence is constantly rare in moderate climates, even in the 

 winter. In storms they seek the shelter of their chosen rocks, or 

 the caverns of the ice-bergs. Their flight, though short, is rapid, and 

 just elevated above the surface of the waves ; they traverse and 

 climb the rocks on which they dwell by leaping and fluttering 

 from point to point. Their principal food at all periods consists 

 of fish ; and notwithstanding this marine diet, the young and the 

 eggs are esteemed as food. The eggs, in all this family of Alca- 

 D^, are remarkable for the thickness and dulness of the shell. 



The Guillemots principally inhabit the Arctic seas, and the coldest 

 of climates, from whence they migrate in winter to more tempe- 

 rate coasts. The genus consists at present of but 5 well ascertained 

 sppcies common to the whole northern hemisphere. 



Subgenus. — Uria. Bonap. 



With the bill longer than the head, straight, compressed, sub- 

 ulate, even. Nostrils linear. 



t Extreme tip of the upper mandible slightly drooping. 



The colors black, presenting many changes in the moulting : the 

 dress of the adult, is said, to be only acquired in the 4th year. The 

 eggs, in the birds of this section are one to three. 



