228 



During winter the guillemot occurs very sparingly upon 

 the Dublin coast, and at that season appears wilder, and fre- 

 quents the outside of the bay, which, perhaps, accounts for 

 the number of those birds found in a dead state upon the 

 coast after the prevalence of any gale of wind. During the 

 same season single birds have been obtained by Mr. Thomas 

 AVatters along the Malahide strand, in every instance with 

 the feathers and flesh of the neck picked completely off, but 

 no other portion of the body injured. Whether this had 

 been occasioned by the great black -backed gulls, which fre- 

 quent this coast in numbers, or by fish, we were unable to 

 determine, but in all probability it was the former. 



Habitat Northern Europe. 



SPECIES 220 THE BRIDLED GUILLEMOT. 



Uria lachrymans. Yarr. 

 Guillemot bride. Temm. 



THIS rare guillemot, which the research of the last few years 

 has separated as a distinct species from the common, is of 

 great rarity in its occurrence, as only two specimens have 

 been obtained in Ireland, one of which, shot at Dingle, 

 county of Kerry, was obtained by Mr. Chute, of Blennerville,* 

 and the other was shot by a boating party off the Giant's 

 Cause way. f 



In a conversation with William Yarrell, Esq., one of its 

 first describers, he expressed his belief that both the bridled 

 and thick-billed guillemots were occasionally to be found 

 about the western coasts of our island, and escaped attention 

 from their similarity to the common species ; and although 

 he had examined a large number of specimens obtained in 

 various shooting excursions at one of their great breeding 

 haunts, on the south coast of England, on the rocky cliffs of 

 the Isle of Wight, he in no instance observed either species. 



An allied species, the thick-billed guillemotf ( Uria Bruni- 

 chii, Saline) is believed to have been recognised in flight 

 at the caves of Ballybunian, on the coast of Kerry. 



Habitat Northern Europe. 



* Thompson. t Ibid. 



