I 



COMMON GUILLEMOT. 453 



them, in such situations that, had they attempted to fall 

 into the waves beneath, they would have been killed by 

 striking against the projecting points of the intervening 

 sharp and rugged rocks ; wherefore I concluded that the 

 information of the rock-climbers was to be depended upon." 

 In further proof of the truth of their statement, I may 

 mention that I have seen on the sea, at the base of the 

 very high cliffs at the Isle of Wight, between the needle- 

 rocks and Freshwater gate, the young of the Guillemot 

 . and Razorbill so small, that they could not have made the 

 descent by themselves from the lofty site of their birth- 

 place without destruction ; yet these little birds knew per- 

 fectly well how to take care of themselves, and at the 

 approach of a boat would swim away, and dive in various 

 directions like so many Dabchicks. By the end of August, 

 or early in September, both parents and offspring have 

 quitted the rocks for that year, and for a time remain both 

 night and day on the open water, far from land, till the 

 circle of seasons induces another visit to the rocks. 



This species remains also about the rocks and bays of 

 Orkney and Shetland all the year, and has been found in 

 summer in various parts of Scandinavia, at the Faroe Is- 

 lands, Iceland, in the Arctic Seas as far north as Nova 

 Zembla, Spitzbergen, and by Sir Edward Parry, and 

 Captain James C. Boss, when on their perilous journey 

 northward over the ice, as high as latitude 81 . East and 

 south-east of England the Common Guillemot is found on 

 the coasts of Holland and France ; it is not included 

 among the birds of Nice or Italy, by M. Risso or Savi. 

 The Prince of Canino, in his catalogue of the birds found 

 at Rome, only considers its occurrence there as accidental, 

 and it very rarely appears so far south as the Mediter- 

 ranean. 



