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BLACK GUILLEMOT. 



SPOTTED GUILLEMOT. COMMON SCRABEE. GREENLAND DOVE. 

 PLATE CCVIII. 



Uria grylle, PENNANT. MONTAGU. 



Cephas grylle, FLEMING. 



THIS species pairs about the middle of March, and the eggs are laid 

 in the beginning or more usually by the middle of June. They are 

 hatched in twenty-four days. The bird sits very close, so as to be 

 easily taken on the eggs. Two or more couples have been known to 

 lay under one piece of rock. 



The bare earth, or rather the bare rock, or a crevice in it, is the 

 only bed sought for by this species for the purpose of nidification. 

 Mr. Hewitson writes as follows: 'On some of the islands which present 

 a steep precipice to the sea, they make use of holes or crevices in the 

 rocks, in which the eggs are laid at various distances from the mouth 

 of the hole from one to two feet, which is most usual, to three or 

 four. On other islands less precipitous, it deposits them in cavities 

 under or between fragments of rock and large stones, with which the 

 beach is strewed. In one place several pairs rear their young ones 

 in crannies between the stones which form the ruins of an old wall, 

 on the top of a single rock at sea, and at an elevation of fifty or 

 sixty feet above its surface. The Black Guillemot resorts annually to 

 the same holes.' 



The eggs are two in number, and of a white colour, with a tinge 

 of green, spotted, blotted, and speckled, more or less with grey, 

 reddish brown, and very dark brown or blackish. Mr. Hewitson has 

 known one of a pink colour. 



Both parents attend to the young until able to fly and dive, when 

 they forage for themselves. 



