The Guillemot. x 39 



in the Firth of Forth. On the north-east coast of England, there are well-known 

 breeding places at the Fame Islands and on Flamborough Head ; but the east 

 coast lower down is unfavourable for the bird's requirements, and there is no good 

 evidence that it ever bred in Norfolk cliffs. Formerly it resorted in numbers 

 to Beachy Head, but in 1891 not more than two or three pairs remained. On 

 the west coast of the Isle of Wight it breeds, although perhaps not so numerously 

 as when " Rusticus " visited Freshwater in coaching days, and gave a picturesque 

 account of the multitude of rock-birds in one of his " Letters." It nests in some 

 numbers in Dorset, and on some of the cliffs on the south coast of Devon ; while 

 a few breed at Baggy Point, on the north coast, and immense numbers on Lundy 

 Island. In the confines of Cornwall, the Scilly Islands are chiefly favoured. 

 There are populous breeding stations on the Islands of Skomer, Skokholm, and 

 the Eligoog Stacks, off Pembrokeshire, and other smaller ones on the mainland. 

 Evidence that it breeds in Somerset is wanting. On the Welsh coast there is a 

 small colony in Cardiganshire, and others in the north, while a good many resort 

 to the Isle of Man ; but the only colony on the north-west coast of England is 

 at St. Bees. Further north it is numerous, numbers frequenting Skye and the 

 Outer Hebrides. 



The Rev. H. A. Macpherson thinks that there can be no doubt that a good 

 many unpaired birds pass the summer in the Irish Channel, and this may be the 

 case in other seas. From autumn to spring it is found commonly round the 

 coast, usually keeping a little way out to sea. Numbers frequent the English 

 Channel in winter, following the large shoals of sprats and other small fish (Booth) . 

 Although not much in evidence at this season they cannot, as Saxby remarks, be 

 far distant, otherwise they would not so soon appear after a gale from seaward. 

 After long continued bad weather and gales from the sea, numbers are washed 

 ashore dead, and Guillemots are occasionally blown far inland in winter. 



Part of the Guillemot's history — i.e., its history during the winter months — is, 

 as Professor A. Newton remarks, still little understood. He writes : — " but what 

 becomes of the bulk of the birds, not merely the comparatively few thousands 

 that are natives of Britain, but the hundreds of thousands, not to say millions, 

 that are in summer denizens of more northern latitudes, no one can yet say. 

 This mystery is not peculiar to the Guillemot, but is shared by all the Alcida 

 that inhabit the Atlantic Ocean" ("Dictionary of Birds"). 



Seebohm, who considered that the Guillemot was a circumpolar bird, varying 

 in the shape of its bill in different parts of its range, states the range of the 

 present bird, here treated as a distinct species, as follows : — It breeds in the Bay 

 of Fundy, Nova Scotia, Labrador, Greenland, south of latitude 64 , Iceland, the 



