571 



safely be stated that, in every colony where the Guillemot breeds, a small proportion of the 

 birds belong to this form ; and all evidence tends to prove that the two forms interbreed indis- 

 criminately, and that there is most certainly no specific difference between them. Captain Feilden, 

 who took great interest in working out this question, writes, in his Notes on the Ornithology of 

 the Feeroe Islands, as follows : — " Having paid considerable attention to these two forms both in 

 Great Britain and Fseroe, I am inclined to look upon them as one and the same species. The 

 two varieties are to be found breeding together indiscriminately ; and the eggs of the Ringed 

 Guillemot are as liable to difference of coloration as those of the common Guillemot. For an 

 account of a series of observations made in the Outer Hebrides during the spring of 1870 by my 

 friend Mr. Harvie-Brown and myself, in reference to this subject, see Gray's ' Birds of the West 

 of Scotland,' p. 426. We there came to the conclusion that in the Outer Hebrides the ringed 

 variety are in the proportion of one to five ; and 1 think that the same estimate would hold good 

 in Fseroe. An examination made by me on one occasion of a large number that had been killed by 

 the fowlers on the island of Skuce gave nearly the same result. Wolley remarks that he found 

 the Ringed Guillemot in Fseroe in the proportion of, perhaps, one to ten, that it lays a similar 

 egg to the common Guillemot, as he ascertained in several instances, and that it was of both 

 sexes, and not, as the natives thought, of one sex, some of them saying it was the male, and some 

 the female ; and he came to the conclusion that he could not see any thing to lead him to suppose 

 that there existed a specific difference between the two varieties." 



Like the Razorbill, the Guillemot is a rock-breeder, and deposits its single egg on the bare 

 rock, usually on a narrow shelf high above the water, without making any nest. I have visited 

 several of the larger breeding-colonies at different times, but cannot do better than give the notes 

 published by some of those observers who have lived amongst their breeding-haunts and have 

 therefore had continual opportunities of watching these birds during the breeding-season. 

 Mr. Cordeaux writes (B. of Humb. Dist. p. 183) that it " nests annually in immense numbers 

 on the Speeton Cliffs, at Flamborough, as well as on the Farn Isles. During the winter months 

 it may be found in every part of the North Sea, and occasionally within the Humber. Although 

 not, as a rule, frequenting the neighbourhood of their breeding-haunts at this season, they are 

 sometimes seen in considerable numbers on the Flamborough cliff in November, becoming quite 

 common in January. They commence nesting in May, incubation lasting a month, the female 

 sitting on a single egg placed on the bare rock, and incubating in an upright position. If the 

 first egg is taken by the cliff-climbers, the old bird will lay another, and, I am told, if the 

 plundering is repeated, will go on laying in succession as many as ten or twelve eggs. 



" When the young are partly fledged, and even when they are quite little things, the old 

 birds carry them down to the sea on their backs. This is done late in the evening, after sunset. 

 The Flamborough boatmen say that when they are fishing under the Speeton Cliffs on summer 

 evenings they have often observed this process of carrying the young down, the little fellow 

 clinging to its parent's back, and not unfrequently tumbling from the somewhat precarious perch 

 into the sea sooner than was intended. 



" The Guillemots leave their breeding-stations about the middle of August ; several, how- 

 ever, leave much earlier than this date. I have seen the old birds with their half-fledged young, 

 yet unable to fly, off the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts, also in the middle of the North Sea 



