854 ALCAD.E. 



Guillemot were the most rare, not so mucli on account of 

 the smaller number of the parent birds, as from the circum- 

 stance of these birds breeding away from the others, far lower 

 down on the rocks, and they were consequently much more 

 difficult to obtain by those lowered down from the top of the 

 rocks. The natives of Grimsey further testified, not in words, 

 but by placing the birds in pairs together, and by separating 

 others when one of each were placed together as a pair, that 

 the Common Guillemot, and the Ringed Guillemot do not 

 breed one with the other, but each sort by themselves. 



M. Nilsson, professor of natural history at Lund, in his 

 Fauna of Scandinavia, considers the Ringed Guillemot only 

 as a variety of the Common Guillemot, but as it appears 

 that the most weighty evidence is in flivour of its being a 

 species, rather than a variety, I have given it a place in 

 this work. 



Not having seen the eggs of this Ringed Guillemot, I 

 am unable to state the characters by which they are dis- 

 tinguished, but the birds themselves in their habits and food 

 are described as very closely resembling the species already 

 noticed. 



An adult bird in its breeding-plumage, obtained at Grim- 

 sey Island, has the beak black, rather more slender in form 

 than that of the Common Guillemot obtained at the same 

 locality ; the iridcs dark ; all round the eye a narrow ring 

 of pure white, and a line of the same colour about an inch 

 and a half long, passing from the eye backwards and down- 

 wards on the neck ; head, chin, throat, upper part of neck 

 all round, lower portion of neck behind, back, wings, and 

 tail dull greyish-black ; tips of secondaries, and all the under 

 surface of the body white ; legs, toes, and membranes 

 brownish-black. The whole length about eighteen inches ; 

 the wing, from the joint to the end eight inches. 



