398 GUILLEMOT 



nearly all modern authors for a Sea-bird, the Colymbus troile of 

 Linnaeus, and the Uria or better Alca troile of later writers, which 

 nowadays it seems seldom if ever to bear among those who, from 

 their vocation, are most conversant with it, though, according to 

 Willughby and Ray his translator, it was in their time so called 

 " by those of Northumberland and Durham." Around the coasts 

 of Britain it is variously known as the Frowl, Kiddaw or Skiddaw, 

 Langy (c/. Icelandic, Langvia), Lavy, Marrock, Murre, Scout (cf. 

 Coot and Scoter), Scuttock, Strany, Tinker or Tinkershire, and 

 Willock. The number of local names testifies to the abundance of 

 this bird, at least of old time, in different places, but it should be 

 observed that in certain districts some of them are the common 

 property of this species and the Razor-bill. In former days the 

 Guillemot yearly frequented the cliffs on many parts of the British 

 coasts in countless multitudes, and this is still the case in the 

 northern parts of the United Kingdom ; but more to the southward 

 nearly all its smaller settlements have been rendered utterly desolate 

 by the wanton and cruel destruction of their tenants during the 

 breedinsr-season, and even the inhabitants of those Avhich were more 

 crowded had become so thinned that, but for the intervention of 

 the Sea Birds Preservation Act (32 and 33 Vict. cap. 17), which 

 provided under penalty for the safety of this and certain other 

 species at the time of year when they were most exposed to danger, 

 they would unquestionably by this time have been exterminated so 

 far as England is concerned. The slaughter, Avhich, before the 

 passing of that Act, took place annually on the cliffs of the Isle of 

 Wight, near Flamborough Head, and at such other stations fre- 

 quented by this species and its allies the Razor-bill and Puflan, and 

 the Kittiwake-Gull, as could be easily reached by excursionists from 

 London and the large manufacturing towns, was in the highest 

 degree brutal. No use whatever could be made of the bodies of the 

 victims, which indeed those who indulged in their massacre were 

 rarely at the trouble to pick out of the water ; the birds shot were 

 all engaged in breeding ; and most of them had young, Avhich of 

 course starved through the destruction of their parents, inter- 

 cepted in the performance of the most sacred duty of nature, and 

 butchered to gratify the murderous lust of those who sheltered them- 

 selves under the name of " sportsmen." 



Part of the Guillemot's history is still little understood. We 

 know that it arrives at its wonted breeding-stations on its accus- 

 tomed day in spring, that it remains there till, towards the end of 

 summer, its young are hatched and able, as they soon are, to 

 encounter the perils of a seafaring life, when away go all, parents 



French Guillemot — thougli that appears to have been originally applied to the 

 young of the Golden Plover (Belon, Hist. d'Oys. p. 262) — and Guillaumc with 

 that between the English Willock, another name for the bird, and AVilliam. 



