LETTER I. 39 



Cormorant. I searched this bank again last season, but in all 

 my egg-hunting tours I never met with another. There were 

 Puffins breeding in the neighbourhood, but their egg is as large 

 as a Common Hen's egg, and of a rounder shape. I have no 

 doubt the Shearwater breeds at St Kilda, and probably at many 

 of the other Hebrides. 



I fell in with two specimens of the Bridled Guillemot {Uria 

 lachrymans) last year, both early in the spring, when the Common 

 Guillemots were beginning to arrive. I shall keep a sharp look- 

 out for them at the same season this year. I met a gentleman last 

 summer who had visited Barra, and he said that he found this 

 bird breeding there, and the natives were well acquainted with it. 



The Golden Eyes (Clangula vulgaris) are plentiful in winter, 

 especially in a fresh-water loch, at a small distance off, in Mull. 



The Eider Duck (Somateria moUissima) is very frequently seen, 

 though generally females and immature birds ; at the neighbouring 

 island of Colonsay they breed in great numbers. They abound 

 there to such an extent that the bird is known by no other name 

 upon these coasts but the Colonsay Duck. The Shieldrake 

 (Tffdorna. vulpanser) is equally abundant ; and in a visit that I 

 paid to that island, during May of last year, I got as many 

 specimens as I wished. 



The Black Guillemot (U^'ia grylle) is the commonest bird we 

 have, next to the Gulls ; it is an interesting little bird, from the 

 various states of its plumage. It breeds in great numbers upon 

 the isles ; and we have reared its young, though they always fly 

 away when full grown ; yet they and young Puffins become very 

 familiar, 



