Birch. 7751 



probably thirty breeding-places of this bird, between Romaine and 

 Chateau Beau, at all of which there were blackbacked gulls in greater 

 or less abundance, but in the whole of this distance I found but one 

 spot on which the blackbacked gulls were breeding by themselves in 

 a greater number than one, or, at most, two pairs. 



As the islands on which these birds breed are all known by the 

 inhabitants, and the eggs and young are both favourite articles of 

 food, they are much harassed by them. At Flat Rock, for instance, 

 where many of these birds breed, on the 26th of July there were from 

 fifty to sixty young birds, the greater number of which, as well as all 

 the eggs, were carried off, and many of the old birds shot by a party 

 of eight whalers, who landed on the island at the same time with our- 

 selves. Nothing remarkable was observed in their method of building 

 their nests. The eggs are subject to a larger amount of variation in 

 form and colour than those of most of the genus ; the large spots 

 found in the saddleback are seldom seen. 

 /RazovhiW [Alca torda) . This species, though abundant, is pro- 

 bably less numerous than the foolish guillemot ; it is, however, much 

 more generally distributed, and breeds on almost all the rocky islands 

 in greater or less numbers, even on those at some distance from the 

 open waters of the Gulf, which the Uria Iroile I believe never does. 



The eggs can generally be 'easily distinguished from those of the 

 guillemots, though some of the latter are so similar that I think they 

 cannot be determined with positive certainty, Naumann says that 

 they can be distinguished by the spots being always shaded on their 

 edges with reddish brown. This is not strictly true, and I have seen 

 eggs of the guillemots in which the spots were similarly shaded. The 

 number of eggs is stated by Audubon to be two ; though I have seen 

 hundreds of them, I never found more than one laid by the same bird 

 and in no instance anything like a nest. The greatest number found 

 breeding at any one place was on an island called Tete de Baleine 

 near the Fox Islands. From the eggs being generally deposited in 

 cracks and fissures, or under projecting masses of rock, they are more 

 difficult to be obtained, and consequently the birds are not so much 

 disturbed as the guillemots. In the ninth volume of the * Pacific 

 R. R. Survey' it is stated that the white line from the nostril to the 

 eye is never absent in this bird in any state of plumage. Naumann 

 says, on the contrary, that in the first plumage it is nearly impossible 

 to distinguish it from the young Uria arra. I have a fine adult spe- 

 cimen in winter plumage, and also a young bird of the year, without 

 a trace of the white line. 



