COMMON GUILLEMOT. 455 



dish-brown, or black ; sometimes these markings are dis- 

 tributed over a white ground colour, and I have seen tiie 

 eggs of this species of a plain green or white colour, with- 

 out any secondary markings ; the form of the egg is that 

 of an elongated handsome pear, measuring three inches 

 and a quarter in length, by one inch and eleven lines in 

 breadth at the larger end. The eggs of the Guillemot are 

 readily distinguished from those of the Razorbill, with 

 which they are most likely to be mixed, by the length to 

 which the smaller end of the former is drawn out. Large 

 quantities of these and various other rock-birds' eggs are 

 collected at different parts of the coast by fishermen and 

 their sons, who let themselves down, or are let down by 

 others, over the edge of the cliff with one or two ropes 

 fixed to a strong iron crow-bar driven into the ground 

 above. These men, from practice, traverse narrow ledges 

 of the rock, picking up the eggs along a path of only a few 

 inches in breadth with steadiness and certainty. The 

 Guillemot makes no nest, and the female sits in an upright 

 position upon her single egg during incubation, which lasts 

 for a month. The young birds, at first covered with down, 

 or bristly hair rather, from the manner in which it resists 

 saturation with water, are fed for a time on the rocks by 

 the parent birds with portions of fish. Mr. Waterton, in 

 his account of his visit to the rock-bird-breeding localities 

 about Flamborough Head, says, " the men there assured 

 me that when the young Guillemot gets to ascertain size, 

 it manages to climb upon the back of the old bird, which 

 conveys it down to the ocean. Having carried a good 

 telescope with me, through it I saw numbers of young 

 Guillemots diving and sporting ou the sea, quite unable 

 to fly ; and I observed others on the ledges of the rocks 

 as I went down among them, in such situations that, had 

 they attempted to fall into the waves beneath, they would 



