XXXVI. 

 URIA GRYLLE. (latham.) 



Black Guillemot, Tyste. 



The seas of Shetland are everywhere enlivened by these 

 pretty birds ; great numbers of them breeding amongst the 

 rocks round which they flow ; they likewise breed in the 

 Orkneys and Western isles of Scotland, but are not, to my 

 knowledge, met with farther south ; though Montagu says, 

 that a few of them breed in Wales, near Tenbigh ; they 

 make no nest, but lay their eggs, which are always two in 

 number, in such situations as the place affords. On some of 

 the islands which present a steep precipice to the sea, they 

 make use of holes or crevices in the rocks in which the eggs 

 are laid at various depths, from one or two feet (which is 

 the most usual), to three or four ; on other islands less pre- 

 cipitous, it deposits them in cavities under or between frag- 

 ments of rock and large stones, with which the beach is 

 strewed ; in one situation several pairs rear their young ones 

 in crannies between stones, forming an old wall on the top of 

 a single rock at sea, and at an elevation of fifty or sixty feet 

 above its surface. The Black Guillemot is not nearly so ex- 

 pert a diver as the Razor-bill or Common Guillemot, and 

 when disturbed usually takes to flight, passing very close to 

 the surface of the water; it is, however, strong upon the 

 wing, and rises with ease to the precipices where it nestles ; 

 its feet, when alive, are very beautiful, being of the purest 

 bright coral red ; it resorts annually to the same holes, which 

 were well known by the boys that accompanied me in search 

 of their eggs, who went immediately to the places where they 

 had taken them in previous years, and were commonly suc- 

 cessful in again finding them ; it is rather later in its time of 

 incubation than the Common Guillemot, Razor-bill, or 



