THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 317 



under my own observation."^ They were all in the plumage of tlie 

 Greenland dove, being that of winter; but when crossing the 

 bay from Carrickfergus to Bangor, on the 29th of January, 

 1835, I remarked one in its black summer attire, f as well as 

 two more in that already named as proper to the season. On the 

 16tli of August, 1848, an old bird, shot on the bay within a 

 quarter of a mile of Belfast, was in full winter plumage. Dr. 

 Fleming, in his ' History of British Animals,' remarks, that he 

 has " observed the birds with black plumage about the end of 

 February,'' and " by the end of March, they are common in this, 

 their summer dress" (p. 135). 



The stomach of one of these birds, shot in Belfast Bay about 

 the middle of September, was filled with the remains of Crustacea. 

 The only portions that could be determined positively, owing to 

 the state of decomposition in which they were, belonged to the 

 hermit crab [Pagurus Bernhardui) of large size. 



Mr. Selby remarks, that " in the northern parts of Scotland 

 and its isles this is a numerous species, but becomes of rarer 

 occurrence as we approach the English coast, where indeed it is 

 but occasionally met with ; and although Montagu has mentioned 

 it as resorting to the Earn Islands, I can safely assert that this 

 has not been the case for the last twenty-five or thirty years" 

 (p. 427) : — the work was published in 1833. Mr. Macgillivray, 

 describing it as a British bird, states, that " aU the breeding- 

 places are to the north of the Tweed and Solway." Sir William 

 Jardine also notices " the coasts of the south of Scotland being 

 near to its southern range in Britain," J but mentions at the same 

 time his having met with the species at the Isle of Man (where he 

 believed it to be breeding), and the record of its occasional occur- 

 rence on the southern coast of England. It is interesting, there- 



* Sometimes called sea-figeon at Lame and at Lambay, vxx^j)arrot at Roundstouc 

 (Mr. J. Niramo). 



t Oa the 12th of February, 1849, Mr. R. Warren, jiin., shot one of these birds iu 

 coiuplete breediug plumage, and saw another iu the same state in Cork Harbour. 



% ' Brit. Birds,' vol. iv. p. 221. At Islay, I saw some of these birds wliieh were 

 shot there at the end of December 1848. 



