THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 577 



ing home. The genus contains only four or five, species. Of these 

 Uria troile still breeds on Heligoland to the number of perhaps a 

 thousand pairs. About fifty years ago their number was consider- 

 ably larger, but the collapse of two or three of their breeding stations 

 has reduced them to a single colony. 



384. Common Guillemot [DUNNSCHNABEL-LUMME], 

 URIA TROILE, Linn. 



Heligolandish : in the summer plumage, Skiitt = Guillemot. Winter 

 plumage : Spitztk-Dogger, Dogger being the named applied to the 

 Eazorbill in winter plumage. Spitztk-Dogger = thin or pointedly- 

 billed Auk. 



Uria lomvia. Nauinann, xii. 508. 



Common Guillemot. Dresser, viii. 567. 



Guillemot a capuchon. Temminck, Manuel, ii. 921, iv. 573. 



Of the nearly four hundred species of birds comprised in the 

 avifauna of Heligoland only three species regularly, year after year, 

 have made their breeding home upon this island rock, these being 

 the Guillemots, a few pairs of the Razorbill, and about twenty 

 pairs of Sparrows ; but these have been joined within the last few 

 years by a few pairs of Starlings and House Martins. 



At present the Guillemots on the island are restricted to a 

 portion of the cliff of a length of about three hundred feet, the cliff" 

 being about two hundred feet in height ; this spot is known in 

 the language of Heligoland as Bre-ad Horn = Broad Horn. At 

 this place a swarm of some two thousand of these birds, during 

 some months of the year, imparts to the cliff on this part of 

 the island the characters of a vast bird-station or ' loomery ' in 

 the Arctic regions. It is astonishing with what pertinacity these 

 birds adhere to the place they have once chosen for their 

 home. Thus, on this island, a ravine only about a hundred feet 

 broad separates the portion of the cliff frequented by them from a 

 rocky prominence exactly similar in form, and presenting in the 

 many recesses which penetrate its strata numerous spots equally 

 adapted for breeding purposes; nevertheless, the birds never 

 attempt to use this place as a breeding station, or even as a 

 temporary resting place, whereas on their own portion of the cliff* 

 they are so crowded near and upon each other that each member 

 of the flock can only maintain his few square inches of ground by 

 constant strife and ceaseless brawling. If one of them flies away for 

 a time, and afterwards wishes to return to its place, those which 

 have remained behind will endeavour to keep it off with open and 

 projected beak, and it is only after suffering one or two repulses 



2o 



