COMMON RAZORBILL. 355 



afford agreeable eating ; but its egg, when hard boiled, is 

 excellent, the albuminous part being tender, and of a bluish 

 tint. The young birds are eaten in some places. The egg, 

 I think, is invariably single, although sometimes one may see 

 two or three that have accidentally come close together in a 

 confined space. It is excessively large, of an oblong shape, 

 somewhat pyriform, but more rounded at the small end than 

 that of the Guillemot, its average length three inches, or 

 rather less, its greatest breadth two inches. The ground 

 colour is white, greyish-white, or brownish-white, largely 

 blotched or clouded, and spotted and sprinkled with deep 

 brown or black, with spots of paler brown and light purplish- 

 blue interspersed. 



The eggs are laid in the beginning of May, and the young 

 come out in about four weeks. They are at first covered with 

 down, and they remain on the rocks until fully fledged. As 

 the changes which they undergo have not been, in so far as I 

 know, hitherto described, I shall give a particular account of 

 them. 



Young. — During the first week the bill is black, with an 

 oval white knob on the upper mandible, and the tips whitish ; 

 the iris black; the feet brownish-black tinged with green, 

 the claws brownish-black. The covering is a short, dense, 

 soft down. The head, neck, and lower parts, are pale grey 

 or greyish-white ; the upper and lateral parts of the body 

 dark grey, especially the hinder. 



When about a fortnight old, the young bird has the bill 

 small, extremely compressed, higher in proportion to its 

 length than afterwards, bluish-black, with the tips horn- 

 colour, the basal margins dull yellow, the knob gone ; the 

 feet black, slightly tinged with green, the claws brownish- 

 black. The covering is not down, properly so called, but a 

 downy plumage, composed of regularly-formed, downy, ob- 

 long, very soft, weak feathers, with disunited downy filaments; 

 those on the head and neck extremely soft, on the lower parts 

 a little firmer, and on the upper somewhat more so. There 

 are regular primary and secondary quills, as well as tail- 

 feathers, but all of looser texture than afterwards. The head. 



