brunnich"'s guillemot. 349 



by name, and some interesting remarks on the early history 

 of this species will be found in Colonel Sabine's " Memoir of 

 the Birds of Greenland,"" published in the 12tli volume of the 

 Transactions of the Linnean Society, 



Brunnich's Guillemot is at once distinguished, at any sea- 

 son of the year, from our Common Guillemot, by the short- 

 ness, the stoutness, angularity, and greater depth of its bill, 

 as shown by the outlines of the beaks of both birds in the 

 vignette attached to this article, and our present subject has 

 been called the Thick-billed Guillemot in reference to this 

 peculiarity. 



Mr. W. Thompson of Belfast, in his published Report on 

 the Vertebrata of Ireland, mentions that the Uria Brim- 

 nichii is noticed by Colonel Sabine as seen by him in the 

 month of July on the coast of Kerry, where it may be pre- 

 sumed to breed. Captain James C. Ross, in his last natural 

 history appendix, published in 1835, says he met with this 

 species at Unst, the most northern of the Shetland Islands, 

 and in several parts of Scotland ; and Professor Macgillivray 

 refers, in the second volume of his Manual, to a specimen 

 now preserved in the Edinburgh University, which was re- 

 ceived with other skins from Orkney. 



Professor Nilsson includes this species in his Fauna of 

 Scandinavia, and considers it the Alca pica of Fabricius ; it 

 is found also at the Faroe Islands and Iceland, at Spitz- 

 bergen, Greenland, Davis' Straits, Baffin"'s Bay, and the 

 Arctic seas. Southward in Europe, one example, a young 

 bird, according to M. Temminck has been killed in the 

 vicinity of Naples, and is there preserved. 



In its habits and food, as far as known, Brunnich''s Guille- 

 mot does not differ from the Common Guillemot, and I am 

 not aware of distinctions in the eggs, if any exist. 



A specimen before mc, brought from Iceland by Mr. 

 Proctor, agrees exactly with Colonel Sabine's description of 



