424 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



neath her, and flew off with the booty, the two first immediately 

 following to claim their share. The egg was dropped and broken 

 on the rocks, when a general scramble ensued between the three 

 robbers for the valued prize/' 



This bird is the Una (Cepphus) arm of Pallas (Zoog. Rosso- 

 Asiat, ii., 1811), and is said by Mr Cassintobe "the most frequent 

 species of this group on the coast of the middle and northern states 

 on the Atlantic, occurring nearly every winter as far south as the 

 coast of New Jersey." 



THE RINGED GUILLEMOT. 

 URIA LAC RY MANS. 



ALTHOUGH the Bridled Guillemot, as this bird has also been called, 

 is very abundant in some districts of the West of Scotland, while 

 it is of rare occurrence on the east coasts, and may be said therefore 

 to have a special geographical range, it is, I think, extremely 

 doubtful if it can lay claim to specific distinction. Selected 

 specimens might, no doubt, be evidenced as possessing a shade of 

 colouring and slenderness of bill slightly different from charac- 

 teristic examples of the common guillemot; yet, after carefully 

 examining a very large series of ringed or bridled birds, I can 

 perceive no distinction in any one specimen entitling it to rank as 

 a separate species. Some of the common guillemots have the rich 

 brown upper plumage, while many of the bridled birds have the 

 same parts of the precise hue which is said to prevail with the 

 common one, thus reversing the supposed distinctions of colour. 

 The same may be said of the differences in the size and shape of 

 the bill the one bird having as stout or as slender a bill as the 

 other. Sir William Jardine is inclined to think that this Guillemot 

 is one of those closely allied species which we so frequently meet with 

 in particular genera, and appears to found his opinion on the bird 

 having a weaker and more slender bill than the common guillemot, 

 the dark olive brown of the head and neck being intermediate in 

 shade between that of the common and Brunnich's, and the eye 

 being surrounded with a ring of white, which is prolonged in a 

 narrow line below the separation of the auriculars. The colour of 

 plumage, and the dimensions of the bill, are, as we have seen, 

 characters which become blended in the two birds, so that the mere 



