of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 265 



Aa the islands on which these birds breed are all known by the 

 inhabitants, and the eggs and young are both favorite articles of 

 food, they are much harassed by them. At Flat Rock, for in- 

 stance, where many of these birds breed, on the 26th of July there 

 were from fifty to sixty young birds, the greater number of which, 

 as well as all the eggs, were c arried off, and many of the old birds 

 shot bv a party of eight whalers, who landed on the island at the 

 same time with ourselves. Nothing remarkable was observed in 

 their method of building their nests. The eggs are subject to a 

 laro-er amount of variation in form and color than those of most of 

 the genus ; the large spots found in the Saddle-back are seldom 

 seen. 



Four of them measured as follows : 73 x 44 mill. — 6*7 x 49 — 

 55 X 48— 'ZSx 52. 



Alca tarda, Linn. This species, though abundant, is probably 

 less numerous than the Foolish Guillemot ; it is, however, much 

 more generally distributed, and breeds on almost all the rocky 

 islands in greater or less numbers, even on those at some distance 

 from the open waters of the Gulf, which the U. troille I believe 

 never does. 



The eggs can generally be easily distinguished from those of 

 the Guillemots, though some of the latter are so similar that I 

 think they cannot be determined with positive certainty. Nau- 

 mans says that they can be distinguished by the spots being always 

 shaded on their ed^es with reddish-brown. This is not strictly 

 true, and I have seen eggs of the Guillemots in which the spots 

 were similarly shaded. The number of eggs is stated by Audu- 

 bon to be two ; though I have seen hundreds of them, I never 

 found more than one laid by the same bird, and in no instance 

 anything like a nest. The greatest number found breeding at any 

 one place, was on an island called Tete de Baleine, near the Fox 

 Islands. From the eggs being generally deposited in cracks and 

 fissures, or under projecting masses of rock, they are morediflBcult 

 to be obtained, and consequently the birds are not so much dis- 

 turbed as the Guillemots. In the ninth volume of the Pacific R. 

 R. Survey, it is stated that the white line from the nostril to the 

 eye is never absent in this bird in any state of plumage. Nau- 

 mann says, on the contrary, that in the first plumage it is nearly 

 impossible to distinguish it from the young U. arra. I have a fine 

 adult specimen in winter plumage, and also a young bird of the 

 year, without a trace of the white line. 



