Birds, 3425 



tainly the best, and has been confirmed by all observant naturalists who have written 

 on the subject. While says that cuckoos do not all sing in the same key. Some 

 writers have asserted that the cuckoo sometimes lays its egg in the nest of a redstart ; 

 in nineteen cases out of twenty, however, the nest of this bird is quite inaccessible to 

 the cuckoo, being in a small hole in a stone wall, a hollow tree, or some such place : I 

 do not believe that the nest of the redstart is ever chosen by the cuckoo. This freak 

 of Nature seems to pervade the insect race as well as birds. Thus we have among 

 some of the Bombinatrices, the false humble-bee, which lays its eggs surreptitiously 

 in the cells of the honest, industrious humble-bee, and by this artifice escapes the toil 

 of making combs and rearing its own young. This wonderful lusus naturce is ordain- 

 ed by the Great Artificer for purposes we cannot comprehend ; for this false bee, al- 

 though very similar, has not the requisites for carrying pollen or collecting honey, like 

 the true insect. I trust your readers will excuse this digression from a bird to an in- 

 sect. — H. W. Newman; New House, near Stroud, March 3, 1852. 



British Species of Guillemot. — Probably some one or other of the readers of the 

 * Zoologist' will, during the ensuing season, visit the Fern Islands with ornithologiz- 

 ing intentions, permit me therefore to call their attention to the guillemots which breed 

 on the same islet with the cormorants — the North Warmsey, (I am not sure of the or- 

 thography, but have spelt it phonetically right). I visited these islands in June last, 

 and on approaching this particular one at what I conceive to be the usual landing- 

 place, I saw three or four guillemots fly off, one of which came close over our heads, 

 I could have almost touched it with a walking-stick, and this bird bore those marks 

 which distinguish the Uria ringvia of Brunnich (U. lacrymans of Temminck and Yar- 

 rell). Now I had seen this bird rise from the islet, and marked the place, so that im- 

 mediately on landing I proceeded to it, and found there, as I expected, an egg; a few 

 yards off was another, and these were the only two guillemots' eggs we could find on 

 the islet. The other birds we had seen did not approach near enough to enable us to 

 discover whether or no they bore the marks of U. ringvia. The surface of this islet is 

 rough, but in no case do the prominences rise very high, and the spot on which I found 

 the above-mentioned eggs could not, I think, be more than five or six yards above the 

 level of the water at that time, and if I recollect right, the tide was nearly out. A vast 

 assemblage of common guillemots, as doubtless many of your readers know, breed on 

 the two or three lofty stacks of rocks called the " Pinnacles," some considerable distance 

 from the cormorants' station, and from the nature of the locality, one can carefully 

 scrutinize each individual bird, but here not one having the distinctive marks of Uria 

 ringvia could be detected. Now, the above observations are worth nothing of them- 

 selves, but it will be seen that, as far as they go, they are corroborative of those made 

 by Mr. Procter in Iceland, quoted by Mr. Yarrell (Brit. Birds, ed. 2, ii. 461), which 

 are to the effect that the ringed guillemot breeds apart from the common species, and 

 at a considerably lower level. Now, if this be proved to be a constant habit of the for- 

 mer in all localities where it breeds, it would be considerably in favour of the opinion 

 that it is a distinct species ; but whether it is so or not, can only be ascertained by re- 

 peated observations, and these I would request any of your readers, who have the op- 

 portunity, to make, and to record their results. The ringed guillemot is decidedly not 

 rare, and is probably to be met with on all our coasts ; it may therefore, I think, be 

 easily ascertained whether it should be regarded as a species or a variety. Most of 

 our collectors appear to consider it as the latter only ? some erase its name entirely 

 from their lists of British birds, while others place a (?) after it, which infers almost as 

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