THE BIRDS OF BEMPTON CLIFFS. 7 



a bit wanting in brains, he is said to be " for all the worrld 

 like a Tammy Norrie." 



The Razor-Bill differs very little in habits from the 

 Guillemot, except that it is more solitary, and prefers a 

 hole or sheltered corner to lay in instead of the open ledges. 

 Male and female in both Razor-Bill, Puffin, and Guillemot 

 are indistinguishable, and the birds undergo but little change 

 from winter to summer plumage. The Razor-Bill has a 

 sootv hue on the throat in summer, which is lost in winter, 

 and the Guillemot, owing to the loss of some slight metallic 

 hue present in the plumage during the breeding season, 

 looks darker on the head and back in winter, and has a 

 white or mottled, instead of a dark brown throat, and a patch 

 of white extending on each side of the throat to the nape 

 of the neck. Puffin, Razor-Bill, and Guillemot, all are true 

 pelagic birds, spending their whole lives on the sea,* and 

 only resorting to the cliffs during the breeding time. All 

 are' North Atlantic species, their farthest southern range^ in 

 winter being the Mediterranean, and also about lat. 30 in 

 the Atlantic, whilst in summer their breeding range extends 

 from the Mouth of the Tagus to Iceland, the Faroes, Bear 

 Island, and the American Seaboard up to lat 64°. The 

 Razor-Bill appears to be a rather more tender bird than the 

 Guillemot, with a higher rate of mortality, and lower rate 

 of increase. 



It is as a Guillemot haunt that our cliffs are famous 

 throughout the British Isles, and to the Guillemot, therefore, 

 I shall mainly confine my remarks. 



There are two varieties, viz., the Ringed or Bridled 

 Guillemot, which is distinguished by a white rim round the 

 eve and a white line extending from the outer corner of 

 the eve down the neck, and the bird which has not this 

 marki i.e., the typical species. In the first half of last cen- 

 tury, opinions raged round the question of these two being 

 separate species. Yarrell, on the evidence of Iceland fisher- 

 men, considered that they were, which opinion Dr. Saxby, 

 in his "Birds of Shetland," tried to maintain, but with no 

 certain data. He kept Ringed Guillemots in confinement 

 for five vears, during which the plumage never changed, 

 and he maintained that the eggs of the ringed bird had 

 larger blotches than those of the other. The St. Kildan's 

 contend that bridled birds are all males. Gould, in 1837, 

 questions its right to be considered a separate species, and 



* The Guillemot at any rate, if placed on land, is unable to take 

 to flisrht. 



