568 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



This species is pretty abundant on our coasts ; and it is 

 said to breed on rocky islands, from Mount Desert eastward. 

 It can therefore be considered as a resident of north-eastern 

 New England through the year. It is found all along 

 our shores in the winter, but not in any great abundance ; 

 and it is less common on the shores of Massachusetts, than 

 on those of Maine. Like the other Auks and Guillemots, 

 it is an expert diver ; and it obtains its food by diving and 

 swimming beneath the surface of the water : this food, as 

 with the others, consists principally of fish, which it seizes 

 in its bill, and swallows whole. It also eats various small 

 marine animals and their eggs ; and, like the others, picks 

 up such floating garbage as may come in its way. 



The eggs, three in number, are placed on the bare rock 

 or earth, usually in fissures of cliffs or almost inaccessible 

 ledges. These are exactly ovoidal in form, and vary in 

 color from a pale greenish-white to a pure pearl-white. 

 This is covered irregularly with spots and blotches of dif- 

 ferent shades of brown and black, thickest at the great end, 

 where they are usually almost confluent into a ring around 

 the whole egg. Besides these spots, there are others of an 

 obscure-purple scattered over the egg, that appear as if they 

 were beneath the outside of the shell. Tlie dimensions of 

 the eggs of this species vary from 2.40 by 1.60 inch to 2.25 

 by 1.50 inch. 



URIA LOMVIA. — Brunnich. 



The Foolish Guillemot; the Murre. 



Uria lomvia, Briinnich. Orn. Bor. (1764), 27. 

 Colyrnhus troik, Liimaus. Syst. Nat, L (1766) 220. 



Description. 



Bill rather long, pointed, compressed ; from the lateral feathers longer than the 

 tarsus, or tlian the inner toe and claw; a narrow line under and behind the eye 

 dark-brown; head above, and entire other upper parts, brownish-black; sides of the 

 htad, and entire under parts, white; sides of the body under the wing with trans- 

 verse stripes of ashy-brown; under wing coverts white, secondary quills tipped with 

 white ; bill blackish-brown, paler at base ; tarsi and feet dark greenish-brown ; sum- 



