78 ALCID^. 



this species "has been once met with" on the coast of 

 Banftshire. A reputed specimen, identified by " the late 

 Mr. Wilson of Woodville," is said to be in the collection of 

 Mr. E. S. Sinclair of Wick, and to have been shot in Caith- 

 ness (Gray's 'B. W. Scot.' p. 422); and Mr. Gray has 

 examined one preserved by a birdstuffer at Hamilton, which 

 was reported to have been obtained on the west coast of 

 Scotland. Mr. A. G. More states, in ' Venables' Guide to 

 the Isle of Wight,' Zoology, p. 34 (1860), that it "was 

 obtained by Mr. Eogers, at Freshwater, Feb. 7th, 1860," but 

 the resting-place of this rare example is not indicated. In 

 Dr. Bullmore's ' Cornish Fauna' (p. 39), one is said to have 

 been obtained off Kosemullion Head ; but it is evident that 

 Mr. Rodd was somewhat doubtful as to the correctness of the 

 identification or of the occurrence ; and the late Mr. Gould 

 does not so much as allude to the species in the Introduction 

 to his ' Birds of Great Britain.' The Ptev. Churchill Bab- 

 ington has kindly sent, for the inspection of the Editor, an 

 undoubted Brlinnich's Guillemot, purchased at the sale of 

 the Museum of Sudbury, Suffolk, where it formed part of a 

 case of twelve ' British Aquatic Birds,' Lot 230, but although 

 there is considerable reason for presuming that it was obtained 

 near the mouth of the Orwell, there is no direct evidence on the 

 point. Lastly, Mr. H. Blake-Knox says (Zool. s.s. p. 2609) 

 that " in June [1870] an adult female was found floating off 

 the Irish coast : the bird had been dead many days ; I 

 hardly call this a fair Irish bird." As this rare example 

 was not too far advanced in decomposition for the sex to be 

 distinguished, it is to be hoped that it was preserved, for 

 whether Irish or not, it probably died " within the four 

 seas." In 1876, Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., published his 

 analysis of the so-called British-killed Briinnich's Guillemots 

 (Rambles of a Naturalist, p. 271), and since that date there 

 seem to have been no further records. 



Brlinnich's Guillemot is in fact a northern species, which 

 has not as yet been found on the Faeroes, and only visits'the 

 coasts of Norway and the North Sea in winter, for Mr. 

 Collett has never succeeded in finding a breeding-place, and 



