704 BLACK GUILLEMOT. 



White Sea as far as Onega ; while on the other side of the Atlantic, 

 it is found from Massachusetts to South Greenland. The birds 

 obtained by Col. Feilden in Smith Sound to the north of lat. 82°, 

 belong to the form distinguished as Uria mandti, in which the bases 

 of the feathers forming the wing-spot are pure white and the black 

 has a green tinge ; and this abounds in the waters of Spitsbergen, 

 Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land, and Arctic Siberia, round to 

 Bering Sea. There it meets with U. cohi/nba, another near ally ; 

 while further south, ranging to Japan in winter, the representative is 

 U. carho, which has no white on the wings. Totally black indi- 

 viduals have been reported from Hebridean waters. 



By some systematists the Black Guillemots have been separated 

 from the other Auks and placed in the genus Cepphus ; and they 

 undoubtedly differ from the species already noticed, in that they 

 lay 2 eggs. These are deposited in crevices of cliffs, or, occasionally, 

 of old ruins, as well as on the bare ground under blocks of stone or 

 among large boulders, sometimes a hundred yards inland ; their 

 colour is white, slightly tinged with green or blue, and spotted with 

 ash-grey and several shades of brown : measurements 2 "3 by i'5 in. 

 The yolk is of a very deep orange-red colour. The birds return to 

 their accustomed haunts year after year, and both sexes un- 

 doubtedly take part in the duties of incubation. Dunn and Saxby 

 state, from observation in Shetland, that the young never leave their 

 birth place until perfectly fledged and able to provide for themselves, 

 after which they are abandoned by their parents. The food is small 

 fish and fry, crustaceans &c. ; the cry is shrill but rather plaintive. 



The adult in spring has the beak black, inside of the mouth 

 reddish-orange ; irides brown ; plumage sooty-black, with a greenish 

 gloss, except for a patch on the wing-coverts, which is white with 

 a black bar — often concealed — on the basal portion ; legs vermilion- 

 red ; length 14, wing 6*5 in. The sexes are alike in plumage. 

 After the autumn moult, the crown is white marked with black, the 

 back is barred with black and white, and the rump and under- 

 parts are nearly white ; but mature birds are black in winter. 

 The young bird exhibits more white than in the autumn dress 

 just described, dark brown irides, blackish-grey bill, inside of the 

 mouth pale orange ; tarsi and feet deep brown ; but by the end 

 of September the inside of the mouth has changed to brownish- 

 pink and the legs and feet to a deeper tint, while in December the 

 colour of these parts differs only in degree from that of the adults. 

 By the end of June the bird is indistinguishable from the adult 

 (Saxby). Varieties are occasionally met with. 



