438 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



here. Their eggs are white, and of much the same bigness with 

 those of a hen. The people of this isle live mostly all the summer 

 on the two kinds of this fowl, together with eggs of various sorts; 

 and I shall make no difficulty of affirming that the place could 

 easily aiford enough of these different articles to support two 

 thousand persons more during that season." 



Young birds with half-formed bills are frequently cast on shore 

 on the east coast of Scotland during winter storms. These are 

 probably migrants from higher latitudes, as they are always 

 associated with little auks, which suffer a like fate. 



THE RAZORBILL. 



ALCA TORDA. 

 Coltraiche. Dui' Eunach. 



THE Razorbill is a much less common species than the puffin or 

 the guillemot at all the breeding-stations in the West of Scotland. 

 Barra Head and Ailsa Craig may be regarded as its chief haunts, 

 though it is found in limited numbers at the Mull of Oe, in Islay, 

 and other places of minor extent, both in the Outer Hebrides and 

 on the western mainland. In its habits it resembles the guille- 

 mot, and arrives at the breeding ledges about the same time, tak- 

 ing up its position in small companies, which are arranged in 

 orderly rows, from almost the base of the cliffs to the summit. I 

 have observed a number of pairs incubating beside the kittiwakes, 

 on the rocky platforms and crevices near the base of Ailsa Craig, 

 and almost within arm's-length of the rough pathway which ex- 

 tends about a third of the distance round that island.* Here it 

 often may be seen dozing, and waiting an opportunity of attack- 

 ing the puffin and the guillemot as they come in from the sea 



* Audubon mentions having found hundreds breeding in a rocky fissure on 

 a rugged island in the G-ulf of St. Laurence, and also states that he found 

 several birds sitting upon two eggs, a circumstance which he turns to account 

 by saying that the Razorbill lays one or two eggs, according to the nature of 

 the place. In this fissure, however, which he describes as being "about two 

 feet in height, and thirty or forty yards in depth," and thus forming a kind 

 of trap for the poor birds, when he and his boat's crew entered it, the Razor- 

 bills were found to be closely packed together, so that it is possible that the 

 birds which were sitting upon two eggs had more than their own share. 



