COMBION GUILLEMOT. 845 



green, more or less blotclicd and streaked with dark reddish- 

 brown, or black ; sometimes these markings are distributed 

 over a white ground colour, and I have seen the eggs of this 

 species of a plain green or white colour, without any se- 

 condary markings ; the form of the egg is that of an elon- 

 gated handsome pear, measuring three inches and a quarter 

 in length, by one inch and eleven lines in breadth at the 

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

 guished from those of the Razorbill, with which they are 

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

 end of the former is drawn out. Large quantities of these and 

 various other rock-birds'" eggs are collected at different parts 

 of the coast by fishermen and their sons, who let themselves 

 down, or are let down by others, over the edge of the cliff 

 with one or two ropes fixed to a strong iron 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 up- 

 right position upon her single egg during incubation, which 

 lasts for a month. The young birds, at first covered with 

 down, or bristly hair rather, from the manner in which it 

 resists saturation with water, are fed for a time on the rocks 

 by the parent birds with portions of fish. Mr. Waterton, 

 in his account of his visit to the rock-bird-breeding localities 

 about Flamborough head, says, " the men there assured me 

 that when the young Guillemot gets to a certain size, it 

 manages to climb upon the back of the old bird, which con- 

 veys it down to the ocean. Having carried a good telescope 

 Avith me, through it I saw numbers of young Guillemots 

 diving and sporting on the sea, quite unable to fly ; and I 

 observed others on the ledges of the rocks as I went down 

 among them, in such situations that, had they attempted to 

 fall into the waves beneath, they would have been killed by 



