290 NATATORES. 



GUILLEMOTS (Uria). 



The guillemots are not quite so handsomely shaped as the 

 divers. They are thicker in proportion to their length, not 

 apparently so fit for getting swiftly through the water, not 

 so long in the wings even in proportion to their diminished 

 length, and still less fitted for walking. Accordingly, they 

 do not breed so far inland as the divers, but rear their 

 broods in the holes of the rocks, or even on the bare tops of 

 the rocks, immediately by the sea, and are seldom, if ever, 

 found on the inland lakes. They are much more abundant 

 on all the British shores, especially the more southern shores, 

 than the divers ; but, like those, they lay only one egg for 

 each brood. 



The characters of the genus are the bill of moderate size, 

 stout, straight, compressed, sharp at the tip, the tomia with 

 incurvated margins, and a distinct notch near the tip of the 

 upper mandible. The nostrils lateral, longitudinally cleft, 

 and half covered by a membrane of considerable breadth, 

 which is feathered. The legs short, placed far backward, 

 the tarsi slender, no hind toe, the three forward toes webbed. 

 They have some seasonal change of plumage, but the sexes 

 do not differ much from each other, neither do the young 

 differ much in appearance from the mature birds when" in 

 their winter dress. 



THE FOOLISH GUILLEMOT ( Uria troile). 



The foolish guillemot is about eighteen inches long, 

 twenty-eight in the expansion of the wings, and from a 

 pound and a half to a pound and three-quarters in weight. 

 In appearance it is a heavy lumpy bird, of an oval form in 

 the body, and of nearly equal thickness at both ends. The 

 neck is short and thick as compared with the lithe and ele- 

 gant necks of the grebes and divers, but part of the thickness 

 arises from the mass of feathers with which it is clothed. Its 



