70 ALCIDiE. 



colours and appearance, and the seasonal changes of its 

 plumage, that the history of the one species hefore given is 

 to a great extent the history of the other, and repetition 

 would be useless. It is, however, more numerically abun- 

 dant, and its eggs are more systematically collected than 

 those of any other member of the family, especially on the 

 cliffs near Flamborough, one of its best known and most 

 accessible breeding-stations. Colonies exist, unless extir- 

 pated by persecution, wherever there are cliffs with suitable 

 ledges, throughout the British Islands ; little more than forty 

 years ago there was one at Cromer, and Mr. J. H. Gurney 

 can remember the existence of one on the comparatively 

 low shelves of Hunstanton, in Norfolk. 



Like the Eazor-bill, the Guillemot lays only a single egg, 

 but this is of large size, and very variable in colour, scarcely 

 two being found precisely alike. It is generally of a fine 

 bluish-green, more or less blotched and streaked with dark 

 reddish-brown, or black ; but sometimes these markings are 

 distributed over a white ground-colour : often the eggs are of 

 a plain green or white colour, without any streaks or blotches, 

 and there is a rich reddish-brown variety which is compara- 

 tively rare ; the form of the egg is that of an elongated 

 handsome pear, measuring 3*2o in. by 2 in. in breadth at the 

 larger end. The eggs of the Guillemot are readily distin- 

 guished from those of the Eazor-bill, with which they are 

 most likely to be mixed, by the length to which the smaller 

 end of the former is drawn out. The gatherers of these 

 and various other rock-birds' eggs at different parts of the 

 coast let themselves down, or are let down by others, over 

 the edge of the cliff with one or two ropes fixed to or hitched 

 round a crow-bar driven into the ground above. These men, 

 from practice, traverse narrow ledges of the rock, picking up 

 the eggs along a path of only a few inches in breadth with 

 steadiness and certainty. The Guillemot makes no nest, 

 and the female sits in an upright position upon her single 

 egg during incubation, which lasts nearly a month. It is, 

 perhaps, unnecessary to combat the fanciful idea once preva- 

 lent, that the eggs are caused to adhere to the rock by some 



