726 

 BLACK GUILLEMOT. 



Uria grylle (!.)• 



Winter visitant of rare occurrence ; has occasionally been observed 

 in spring and summer. Formerly bred at Flamborough. 



The earliest mention of this, as a Yorkshire bird, was made 

 by Pennant, who visited Flamborough Head on 3rd July 

 1769, and remarked of the birds seen there, " Multitudes 

 swarmed in the air, and almost stunned us with the variety 

 of their croaks and screams ; I observed among them .... 

 a few black guillemots very shy and wild ("A Tour in 

 Scotland," 1771, pp. 14-15). 



Thomas Allis, 1844, reported thus : — 



Uria grylle. — Black Guillemot — Obtained on the coast, but not 

 a plentiful species. A. Strickland remarks, " About thirty years 

 ago I killed a specimen of this bird, out of a small flock, in full plumage, 

 at the height of the breeding season, near the rocks of Flamborough ; 

 this specimen I still have preserved ; if they were then breeding at 

 the cliffs, or ever did so, I cannot say ; but it is the only instance I 

 ever heard of their being seen there at that time of the year, but young 

 birds, or others in immature plumage, are not infrequently met with 

 in winter about here." 



According to the account given by Pennant in 1769 (quoted 

 above), the Black Guillemot was at that period included 

 in the list of birds resorting to Flamborough Head in the 

 nesting season ; and Strickland's remarks, embodied in Allis's 

 Report (1844), lead us to infer that it might have continued to 

 breed there up to the early part of the last century ; additional 

 evidence in support of this supposition has been unexpectedly 

 supplied by Professor A. Newton, who has obligingly per- 

 mitted me to examine an unmistakeable egg of this species 

 from Charles Waterton's collection, labelled " 1834," ^^^ 

 taken at Flamborough. That portion of the coast affords 

 suitable sites for its nesting places, but personal research 

 on my part has failed to elicit reliable information as to the 

 discovery of eggs within recent years, and, although adult 

 examples of the bird have been seen near the Headland 



