ALCID^. 423 



the family, wanders from its Polar summer-quarters, and 

 is not rare as a winter visitor; while the Great Auk, once 

 the king of all the Cliff-Birds, and at the beginning of the 

 century still perhaps resident on some of our northern 

 islands, has been extinct for the last fifty years, and has 

 only a very doubtful connection with the Devon Ornis. 

 Periodically the Cliff-Birds are visited by great mortality, 

 due to gales occurring at the end of the summer when 

 they are in the midst of their moult. They are then 

 unable, in their weakened state, to capture the fry on 

 which they solely subsist, and probably the fish in stormy 

 weather leave the surface and plunge into the undisturbed 

 deeper water. On several occasions we have found the 

 sands of Barnstaple Bay littered with vast numbers of 

 dead Razorbills, Guillemots, and Kittiwakes, with a few 

 Puffins ; and the tide has floated their bodies far up Taw 

 and Torridge. Those we examined were only feather and 

 bone, showing that their deaths had been due to starva- 

 tion. There was a great destruction of Cliff-Birds at the 

 end of September in 1859. The Kazorbills appear to 

 suffer more than either the Guillemots or Puffins ; severe 

 storms in 1872, and again in 1880-81, caused death to a 

 vast number. On the coast of Brittany, myriads of Puffins 

 also perish when a gale comes upon them while they are 

 in moult. But hardly a season passes without a few of the 

 Cliff-Birds being found dead upon our Devon coasts after 

 gales in the autumn and winter. 



Razorbill. Alca tor da, Linn. 



[Ilazor-billefl Murrc] 



Ilcsidcnt and abundant, breeding on Lundy Island in fionic )iunil)ers, 

 and also sparingly on some of tho cliff's of the north and south coasts; but 

 on th(! latter it is most huuktous in winter (Zool. ]S77, ]». I<)4). It is 

 sometimes very ])lcntit'ul at I'lymoutli, largo thjcks of adult birds assem- 

 bling outside the breakwater iu January and February, and some aro 



