720 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



the Yorkshire Guillemots' eggs, ranging through all shades of 

 white, yellow, ochreous, green, blue, pink, red, chocolate 

 brown, purple, and black ; streaked, spotted, blotched, 

 pencilled, and veined in a bewildering manner with black, 

 brown, purple, lilac, or red ; some present a perfect network 

 of markings like delicate tracery, others seem as though one 

 end had been dipped in an ink pot, some are spotless white, 

 pale blue, or green, while occasionally examples have letters, 

 numerals, or grotesque representations of animals figured 

 on them. After one of William Wilkinson's descents he took 

 out of his bag a nicely marked egg, and, on my inquiring the 

 price, he turned it over, and, looking at it quizzically, replied, 

 " Why the price, threepence, is on it " ; pointing at the 

 same time to a distinct figure 3 on the broad end. In the 

 year 1880 Henry Marr secured a perfectly black egg off Staple 

 Neuk. 



It is usually considered that the first eggs in a season 

 are the most richly marked, though this is not the invariable 

 rule, sometimes the second " flush " contains the best, and 

 occasionally the third ; experienced climbers assert that the 

 same individual Guillemot produces a similarly marked type 

 of egg year after year on the same ledge. Old George Londes- 

 borough took a particularly fine red egg from the same spot 

 for fifteen years in succession ; and William Wilkinson and 

 Edward Hodgson have found certain peculiarly marked ones 

 for eight, twelve, and even sixteen consecutive summers, 

 and generally two in each season. I have seen several 

 specimens from the sixteen years' resident : two were taken 

 in 1900, three in 1901, three in 1903, and two in 1904, all 

 similarly marked, the pencilled variety on a white ground ; 

 a set of three, all of a pale uniform blue, were gathered from 

 one spot in 1900 ; and of another set of two the first was 

 taken on 28th May 1897, and the second on the same date 

 in the year following. In June 1902, I secured two eggs, 

 of exactly similar colouring and markings, which W. Wilkinson 

 had found, one on top of the other, but the first laid had 

 fallen into a hollow of the rock, thus preventing the parent 

 incubating it, and she had then laid the second one above it. 



