480 THE DIVING BIRDS — PYGOPODES. 



species keep apart, and occupy separate portions of their common breeding-ground, 

 but each individual bird apparently knows its place and keeps to it, going at once to 

 its own chosen spot to renew its egg when the nest has been despoiled of its treasure. 

 It is very rare to find two distinct species breeding side by side, although Audubon 

 speaks of having found the Razor-bill breeding in company with this species on the 

 coast of Labrador. 



When Audubon visited Labrador in 1832 he found this bird breeding by thousands 

 on the Masse Bocks, near Great Maeatina Harbor. These were several low islands, 

 destitute of vegetation, and not rising high above the water. As he approached 

 these islands the air became darkened with the multitudes of birds flying about. 

 Every square foot of the ground seemed occupied by a Guillemot sitting erect on 

 its solitary egg. On his landing, each affrighted bird left its egg hastily, ran a few 

 steps, and launched into the air in silence, flying rapidly around as if to discover the 

 object of the unwelcome visit ; and then all alighted in the water at some distance, 

 anxiously awaiting the departure of the intruder. Eggs — green and white, and 

 of almost every color — were lying thickly over the whole rock; and these were 

 collected by the eggers in astonishing quantities and taken to distant markets. 



These wholesale depredations have been followed by the inevitable consequences; 

 and when 1 >r. Bryant visited these same islands twenty-eight years later, he found 

 them almost abandoned. 



According to the last-named authority, this species breeds at various points from 

 the extremity of Nova Scotia to Hudson's Bay, and is the most common bird on the 

 Labrador coast. The extent to which these birds are persecuted may be imagined 

 from the fact that though on the 23d of June young birds were common at the 

 (i an net Rock — where they are but little, if at all, disturbed — Dr. Bryant had seen, up 

 to the 20th of July, but one young bird on the Labrador coast. At the Masse Rock 

 not more than a hundred eggs could be collected on the 2d of July; and the number 

 of Guillemots breeding there was probably not a hundredth of what it was in 

 Audubon's time. 



When undisturbed, this bird lays but a single egg in a season; and this is of large 

 size in proportion to that of the bird, and very variable in color, hardly any two being 

 exactly alike. The ground-color, which is even more variable than are the shades of 

 the markings, may be white, or bluish green, white tinged with reddish, with just a 

 slight tinge of green, or with the latter color very deep and bright. The markings 

 are generally a dark reddish brown, deepening in some almost to black. In a few 

 instances the eggs are unmarked, some being entirely green or wholly white. Their 

 extreme length is 3.31 inches, ami their minimum length about 2.81; the breadth 

 varies from 1.77 to 2.00. Their form is elongated pear-shape. 



The Guillemot makes no nest: and sits in an upright position on her single egg, 

 incubation lasting four weeks. The young bird is at first covered with a brownish- 

 black, bristly, hairlike down, and is fed for a short time by the parent with pieces of 

 fish. Mr. Waterton, on his visit to Flamborough Head, was assured by the men 

 there that when the young bird reaches a certain size, it climbs upon the back of the 

 old bird, and is conveyed by the latter to the ocean. Through a good telescope he 

 saw numbers of the young Guillemots, still unable to fly, sporting in the sea, and 

 others on the edges of the cliffs in such situations that had they attempted to fall 

 into the water they would inevitably have been killed by striking upon the interven- 

 ing rocks ; and he therefore accepted the information of the rock-climbers as being 

 the only probable explanation of the fact that the young bird reaches the water at so 

 early an age. 



