230 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



inclined to consider it as merely a large form of Common Guillemot ; 

 perhaps I should express my meaning more correctly by saying that I look 

 upon our Common Guillemot as a local race of the species of which I am 

 treating." On the other hand, Prof. Newton, to whom I wrote shortly after 

 obtaining my specimens, replied that he considered Briinnich's Guillemot 

 a good species, and states that the Guillemots inhabiting the Baltic are 

 stated to be larger than those bred on the North Sea and Atlantic coasts of 

 Europe, and some such bird I have, which I obtained about the same time 

 as the two Brunnich's; it has a bill somewhat similar to Briinnich's, only 

 the white line is fainter, but the tarsi and toes are those of the Common 

 Guillemot. Then again, as I mentioned in ' The Zoologist' (L895, p. 71), I 

 obtained what to all intents and purposes was a Kinged variety of Briinnich's 

 Guillemot. (If the Ringed bird be only a variety — but I am very much 

 inclined to think that it is as worthy of specific rank as the Briinnich's, 

 and at any rate where I have had the greatest opportunities of observing 

 it — at its breediug stations on the Yorkshire coast — it breeds true.) 

 Unfortunately this bird was far too much damaged to be preserved in toto, 

 and I was very busy at the time preserving my Briinnich's Guillemot and 

 some Little Auks, but I managed to save the head and neck. The bill 

 was short and stout, and the white line most distinct. The bird was very 

 black on the upper parts, the white on the throat ran up to a point, and 

 the tarsi and toes were of the Biiinnich type. Now I have never heard of, 

 or seen, a Ringed variety of Briinnich's Guillemot; but surely if the 

 Ringed bird is only a variety of the Common, how comes it that there is 

 not a Ringed variety of the at any rate closely allied Briinnich's bird, which 

 " breeds in countless thousands in Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Novaya 

 Zemlya" (Lord Lilford)? Structurally I can find no other distinctions 

 between Briinnich's and the Common species than can be found in a large 

 series of the latter. These are all interesting points; but probably, as 

 pointed out by Lord Lilford, there is only one species, Brunnich's Guil- 

 lemot, the others being local races. There are several points in the 

 life-history of the Guillemot that require clearing up, apart from the 

 question, what becomes of the immense hosts of northern birds after the 

 breeding season ? I have never been able to ascertain the simple fact as 

 to the exact manner in which the young are conveyed down to the sea from 

 the cliffs, though I have often tried to do so. I have seen with my glass 

 the young one drop from the old bird, but as to how it was carried I cannot 

 say. The cliff-climbers believe that the young are taken down either on 

 the backs or in the beaks of the old ones ; but, so far as my experience 

 goes, this is certainly not the case on the Yorkshire cliffs : the young seem 

 to be tucked up somehow underneath the old one, but as to the exact 

 modus operandi I am still ignorant. It seems curious that, with the numbers 

 of birds breeding round our coasts, and the ever-increasing numbers of 



