422 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



the old birds on their behalf. From their tender age, it was evident 

 that they could not have got down from their perches without 

 having been carried; and it appears strange that the habit of 

 lifting their young ones should prevail among this kind of sea-fowl. 

 It is just possible that the labour of carrying their food nearly five 

 hundred feet into the air is too great ; or perhaps the employment 

 of carrying fish at all may be distasteful to a bird of high descent. 



Towards the end of autumn, or beginning of winter, large flocks 

 of Guillemots betake themselves to salt water lochs, and occa- 

 sionally to fresh water lakes a little way inland. They have been 

 seen in mid-winter on Loch Leven in the east, and several places 

 of a like nature in the west; but their stay appears to be entirely 

 influenced by the weather. 



At Barra, in the Outer Hebrides, where there is an extensive 

 nursery of these birds, great numbers died on the ledges in the 

 breeding season of 1867, as I have been informed by Mr Alexander 

 A. Carmichael, Lochmaddy. Incubation had been delayed till the 

 middle of August, on account of the severity of the weather, which 

 seems to have caused the mortality. In more favourable situa- 

 tions, the young birds had, by that time, all left their perches. 



Albinoes sometimes occur on the west coast. The last variety 

 of this kind that came under my observation was shot in the Firth 

 of Clyde, near Kothesay, and is now in the collection of Dr Dewar 

 of Glasgow. 



BRUNNICH'S GUILLEMOT. 



URIA BRUNNICHIL 



THOUGH this species has been said to be a native of St. Kilda, I 

 can find no reliable information on the subject of its breeding 

 there. None of my correspondents who have visited St. Kilda 

 appear to have recognised the bird at all. It is, therefore, ex- 

 tremely doubtful if it can be regarded in any other light than as a 

 very rare straggler in any part of Scotland. The late Mr Wilson 

 of Woodville, in his ' Voyage,' mentions having seen a specimen 

 in the collection of Mr E. S. Sinclair of Wick: it had been shot 

 in Caithness, and was preserved by Mr Sinclair, who was unable 

 to name the species (although its peculiarities were observed) until 

 Mr Wilson identified it. In Macgillivray's work on ' British 



