GUILLEMOT. NATATORES. URIA. 42* 



ever plausible they may at first sight appear, and (as pro- 

 ceeding from a practical ornithologist and keen observer) en- 

 titled to attention, I cannot consider them to be of the 

 weight that many feel inclined to allow. In his observations 

 upon the Foolish Guillemot, in the Appendix to his Orni- 

 thological Dictionary, he considers the eld bird as never 

 changing its plumage, but always retaining the pitch-brown 

 head and neck ; an opinion that led him into his subsequent 

 error, and adopted from having once obtained specimens of 

 the Guillemot in this state of plumage, in the latter part of 

 January, upon the southern coast of England. That such a 

 specimen should have been met with at this season, is no 

 more than might naturally be expected, and what has also 

 occurred to myself ; as the assumption of the nuptial dress 

 must always be dependent upon the time at which the bird 

 had completed the duties of reproduction in the preceding 

 season, and undergone the moult that immediately follows. 

 This, from my own observations, frequently takes place as 

 early as the end of June, or the beginning of July, and in 

 such cases the other change will of course be comparatively 

 early. I am, therefore, inclined to think, that what MON- 

 TAGU has described as the young of the Foolish Guillemot, 

 was in fact an old bird, having acquired at an early period 

 the white throat or winter plumage; as I possess at present 

 a specimen (certainly an adult), that agrees with his in al- 

 most every respect, and the wings of which are nearly per- 

 fect, having only lost one or two of the quill-feathers. That 

 a great proportion of the birds met with in the state of the 

 supposed Lesser Guillemot, should be of inferior size, and 

 deficient as to the perfect development of the bill and its ter- 

 minal notches, is not extraordinary, and only in accordance 

 with our observations on other species ; but at the same time 

 many individuals are also found in this plumage, with all the 

 characteristics of the old Guillemot, both as to size, form, 

 and length of bill, &c., particularly amongst that body that 

 winters in the friths and sheltered bays of Scotland ; and I 

 have now in my collection specimens of the adult bird, in the 



