398 GUILLEMOT 
nearly all modern authors for a Sea-bird, the Colymbus troile of 
Linneus, and the Uvria or better Alca troile of later writers, which 
nowadays it seems seldom if ever to bear among those who, from 
their vocation, are most conversant with it, though, according to 
Willughby and Ray his translator, it was in their time so called 
“by those of Northumberland and Durham.” Around the coasts 
of Britain it is variously known as the Frowl, Kiddaw or Skiddaw, 
Langy (cf. Icelandic, Langvia), Lavy, Marrock, Murre, Scout (cf. 
Coor and Scorsr), Scuttock, Strany, Tinker or Tinkershire, and 
Willock. The number of local names testifies to the abundance of 
this bird, at least of old time, in different places, but it should be 
observed that in certain districts some of them are the common 
property of this species and the Razor-BrLu. In former days the 
Guillemot yearly frequented the cliffs on many parts of the British 
coasts in countless multitudes, and this is still the case in the 
northern parts of the United Kingdom ; but more to the southward 
nearly all its smaller settlements have been rendered utterly desolate 
by the wanton and cruel destruction of their tenants during the 
breeding-season, and even the inhabitants of those which were more 
crowded had become so thinned that, but for the intervention of 
the Sea Birds Preservation Act (32 and 33 Vict. cap. 17), which 
provided under penalty for the safety of this and certain other 
species at the time of year when they were most exposed to danger, 
they would unquestionably by this time have been exterminated so 
far as England is concerned. The slaughter, which, before the 
passing of that Act, took place annually on the cliffs of the Isle of 
Wight, near Flamborough Head, and at such other stations fre- 
quented by this species and its allies the Razor-bill and Puffin, and 
the Kittiwake-Gull, as could be easily reached by excursionists from 
London and the large manufacturing towns, was in the highest 
degree brutal. Nouse whatever could be made of the bodies of the 
victims, which indeed those who indulged in their massacre were 
rarely at the trouble to pick out of the water; the birds shot were 
all engaged in breeding ; and most of them had young, which of 
course starved through the destruction of their parents, inter- 
cepted in the performance of the most sacred duty of nature, and 
butchered to gratify the murderous lust of those who sheltered them- 
selves under the name of “sportsmen.” 
Part of the Guillemot’s history is still little understood. We 
know that it arrives at its wonted breeding-stations on its accus- 
tomed day in spring, that it remains there till, towards the end of 
summer, its young are hatched and able, as they soon are, to 
encounter the perils of a seafaring life, when away go all, parents 
French Guil/emoi—though that appears to have been originally applied to the 
young of the Golden PLover (Belon, Mist. d’Oys. p. 262)—and Guillawme with 
that between the English Willock, another name for the bird, and William. 
