BLACK GUILLEMOT. 427 



"We saw other two bridled birds rise from their eggs and adjust 

 them with their bills and thighs. Like the others, they are 

 ordinarily marked eggs, and quite as much blotched as streaked. 

 We examined many other ledges, and in nearly every case found 

 the average to agree with the details given. We may add that 

 the weather was calm and oppressively hot, and consequently we 

 had no opportunity of counting the birds as they flew past, which 

 can only be done during wind or a prevailing mist." 



THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 



URIA GRYLLE. 



Caileag. 



THE Black Guillemot, which is permanently resident, may be 

 called a common species on the whole of the western coasts, 

 including both groups of islands. In the outer chain, or Long 

 island, the breeding places are not so numerous as those occurring 

 on the same extent of 'coast line on the mainland. It is found 

 nesting on Berneray (Barra Head) and Mingalay, and also on 

 various rocky islets northwards of these localities as far as the 

 extremity of Lewis. There are breeding places on the Shiant 

 isles in the Minch, Ascrib islands in Loch Snizort in the north of 

 Skye, and similar groups of rocks on the western coast of that 

 island; in the islands of Canna, Rum, and Eigg; in Coll, Tyree, 

 the Treshinish islands, lona, Staifa, and Mull; at Lanaig in Islay, 

 and finally on Arran, south of which I have not been able satis- 

 factorily to trace any breeding place. On the mainland it has been 

 found nesting in a number of places ranging from the island of 

 Gigha, off the coast of Cantyre, to Handa, on the west coast of 

 Sutherlandshire. On 31st May, 1869, Mr Harvie Brown took 

 nine nests of the Black Guillemot on Meal Mhor rocks, at the 

 entrance to Kyle Sku ; each bird was sitting on two eggs, which is 

 the usual number, though it is stated by Audubon that many of 

 the nests which he found during his researches in America con- 

 tained three. That writer, indeed, has ventured the statement 

 (Orn. Biog., vol. iii., p. 149) that "our species," as he calls the 

 bird, always deposits three eggs. " No true student of nature," 

 he continues, " ought ever to be satisfied without personal obser- 

 vation when it can be obtained. It is the ' American woodsman ' 



