Birds. 7497 



Black Guillemot, Uria grylle. 



Situation. On sea-clifFs in Orkney, Shetland and St. Kilda ; also, 

 m very small numbers, in the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth. 

 Materials. None whatever, its egg being laid on the bare rock. 

 Egg 1. Gray, speckled with black and ashy gray. 

 Puffin, Mormon fratercula. 



Situation. It burrows in the ground, or adopts as its own the bur- 

 rows of rabbits, in the immediate neighbourhood of the sea. Pem- 

 bleton Island, near Anglesea, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, &c. : it also 

 frequently breeds in fissures of sea-cliffs: see especially, on this point, 

 the 'Letters of Rusticus,' and a paper 'On Sea-fowls Breeding in 

 Moray Firth,' by the Rev. James Smith (Zool. 2905). Mr. Smith 

 says that the fissures in which these birds breed are very narrow and 

 frequently long. « They extend a considerable way into the rock, 

 and are generally horizontal, but occasionally vertical. Especial care 

 seems to be taken by the bird against all such among them as may 

 be liable to be reached by the waves, even when the tide is at the 

 very highest. There is in this case but little appearance of a nest; 

 but, when incubation is well advanced, a few grasses will be usually 

 observed intermixed with a sprinkling of feathers from the bird. In 

 such fissures as these the nest can only be reached by means of a 

 stick. The bird sits very closely and determinedly upon it ; will not 

 be induced to quit it except by force, and with its singularly con- 

 structed and formidable beak bites most severely in its defence." 



Materials. None, the egg being placed on the bare earth at the 

 extremity of the burrow. 



Egg, 1. Gray, with a dingy tinge and a few brown specks. 

 Razoebill, Alca torda. 



Situation. On sea-cliffs ; sometimes in holes. 

 Materials. None. 



Egg, 1. Generally gray, blotched with black or brown. 

 Cormorant, Carbo cormoramis. 



Situation. The ledges of sea-cliffs, Freshwater Cliff, Isle of Wight, 

 and many other localities. 



Materials. Sticks and dead sea-weeds. 



Eggs, 5. Whitish, tinged with green. The young are born blind and 

 naked, but soon acquire a clothing of black down : they are six weeks 

 before they can leave the nest. I have seen them in all stages on the 

 face of the cliff at Freshwater by lying down and looking over from 

 the summit: the smell from these birds, while nesting, is exceedingly 

 offensive. 



VOL. XIX. 2 D 



