BIRDS OF ICELAND 129 



XJria bruennichi (E. Sabine). 

 Brunnich's Guillemot. 



Native name : ' Stuttnefja ' (Short-bill). 



Eesident, but not common, breeding in small colonies 

 near the other Guillemots, especially on the northern 

 coasts {e.g. on Grimsey) ; elsewhere it is doubtful if 

 it breeds at all. It is a much more Arctic bird in its 

 range than U. troile, and as its eggs are not to be 

 distinguished from those of that bird with anything 

 like certainty — if at all — the collector had better 

 obtain Brlinnich's Guillemot's eggs from Greenland, 

 Jan Mayen, Spitzbergen, or from other places where 

 the Common Guillemot is not found. The birds are to 

 be distinguished, however, with care. The bill of this 

 species is much stouter and somewhat shorter (1-|- to 

 If inches from forehead to tip), and has a white line 

 along the edge of the upper mandible behind the 

 nostrils. The length of the two birds is much the 

 same (18 inches), but Brlinnich's has a proportionately 

 longer wing, viz. 8 to 9 inches, to 7^ inches in the 

 Common Guillemot. 



Its food in a general way will doubtless consist of 

 much the same viands as the Common Guillemots, i.e.. 

 in Iceland. But in more fishless seas farther north 

 it varies a good deal. Three which I dissected off 

 Novaia Zemlya in 1895 had been feeding exclusively 

 on small marine Crustacea {Copepocla, etc.), none of 

 them half an inch long; this was, however, in cold 

 water, and amongst the drift ice. 



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