15° British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



Family— AL CIDsE. 



Black Guillemot. 



Uria grylle, (Linn). 



THIS strikingly coloured little diver is very abundant in the Shetland and 

 Orkney Islands, and is found commonly in the Hebrides and down the 

 west coast of Scotland. In Skye vast numbers breed at the Ascribs. It breeds 

 in Caithness and Sutherland, but further south, on the east side, it does not seem 

 to have been ascertained to do so in recent years, although supposed to breed on 

 the coast of Kincardine and in other localities in former years. According to 

 Pennant it bred formerly on the Bass Rock. 



Montagu stated that the Black Guillemot frequented the Fame Islands ; but 

 Selby, writing in 1833, could assert that this had not been the case for five and 

 twenty or thirty years past. Mr. Cordeaux has recently informed me that it probably 

 breeds there again now, and that he has seen one or two in the water off Staples 

 Island. The late B. T. Booth stated that he obtained a single specimen off these 

 islands in May, 1867. Booth also (writing in 1876) said that a few bred, or rather 

 did some years before, at Flamborough Head. When I was at Flamborough in 

 July, 1896, our boatmen assured me that a Black Guillemot frequented the cliffs 

 at that time, and Mr. Matthew Bailey confirmed the report. I was not, however, 

 lucky enough to see the bird. In the following winter Mr. Cordeaux kindly wrote 

 me word that Mr. Bailey seemed pretty certain that a pair nested in the cliffs, 

 and a young bird got off. Pennant mentions seeing the Black Guillemot on the 

 rocks off Llandudno, in Carnarvonshire, and in the appendix to his " British 

 Zoology," says that they sometimes bred there. But at the present day none 

 breed anywhere on the coast of Wales or on the mainland of North-west England. 

 But on the Isle of Man it is still to be found in certain localities; in one in 

 some numbers, in others sparingly ("Zoologist," 1896, p. 471). 



With regard to South Wales, Montagu stated that he had seen it rarely near 

 Tenby, and that a few bred annually on the coast there, but nowhere else that 

 he could find from thence to St. David's. The Rev. Murray A. Mathew, however, 

 informs me that he believes the Colonel made a mistake. When Mr. Mathew 

 was in Pembrokeshire he questioned several old gentlemen whose experience went 



