3478 Birds. 



stated correctly, that Mr. Newton must not throw the onus probandi on those who do 

 not believe the ringed guillemot to be a distinct species, at least, if this assertion be 

 not denied, namely, that there has not been proved any appreciable structural differ- 

 ence between it and the common guillemot. For a constant restriction in interbreed- 

 ing has not been shown, and the only variation in the actions of life hinted at has been 

 the occupation of particular shelves of the rock. But this peculiarity might be owing 

 to age, for it is probable that of all gregarious species, as certainly of rooks, the old 

 birds take the best places for themselves, leaving the outskirts to the younger members 

 of the community. Even then admitting the fact of the segregation, I thmk no case 

 is made out for those who would subdivide the species of the common guillemot. Bu 

 I do not admit the supposed fact as a general truth. Even if the information given to 

 Mr. Procter in Iceland be correct (and Mr. Newton's observation in the Farn Islands 

 tended to confirm it), it is certain that in this country, and in the Faroe Islands, the 

 birds lay their eggs promiscuously. In the year 1849 I paid particular attention to this 

 subject. First, I saw a large assemblage of guillemots on April 22 (a sunshiny day), 

 upon the flat summit of the rock called the Kleat, at Holborn Head, in Caithness. 

 There were several hundreds of them standing together on the guano-covered plat- 

 form of that lofty stack. They were not more than forty or fifty yards from me, and 

 with a glass I could see them as well as if they had been in my hand. Perhaps every 

 sixth bird amongst them had the white margin to the eyes, and the white line extend- 

 ing from it. They were courtseying and bowing to each other, without any reference, 

 so far as I could see, to the presence or absence of the facial peculiarity; and as I 

 carefully watched this match-making party for some time, had they shown any marked 

 preferences, I could hardly have failed to observe it. At the beginning of June, in 

 the same year, I became familiar with the guillemots on the cliffs of the island of 

 Handa, off the coast of Sutherland, on which they are in myriads. I was not satis- 

 fied with looking at them from above, but with the help of a rope I went amongst them 

 in every part of the rocks on three or four days. The ringed ones seemed rather less 

 numerous than in Caithness ; they were scattered amongst the others, neither often 

 mixing with the razor-bills on the upper shelves, nor confining themselves to the lower 

 shelves of the rocks, but in every row of ten or twenty guillemots, one or two were sure 

 to have the white about the eyes. I took with great care the eggs from underneath 

 several of the white-eyed ones. They differ in no respect from the other eggs, and are 

 liable to the same varieties. In one instance of a row of ten or twelve eggs, the only 

 white one (there was scarcely a spot upon it) was laid by a white-eyed bird, which so 

 far gives colour to the story of the Flamborough climbers, that the ringed guillemots 

 lay white eggs. However, I am by no means sure (alas for egg-collectors !) that birds 

 are always found sitting on their own eggs. Does not a guillemot when wishing to 

 sit take to the first egg which it finds uncovered on the shelf or part of the shelf to 

 which it has attached itself? At all events, moved about as the eggs often are, and 

 ignorant of exchanges made for them as most birds seem to be, it appears probable 

 that such may be the case ; and certainly it is so with another gregarious sea-bird lay 

 ing a single egg — the gannet. At the Bass I have seen one go aud sit upon the near 

 est unoccupied egg, when pecked off another egg which it had previously been sitting 

 on, by a comrade just arriving from the sea. Yet this bird makes a nest; indeed that 

 which came up lastj in the anecdote I have just related, showed a knowledge of some 

 claim of right or might to which the other submitted. In the Shetland Isles, on the 

 sides of the Holm of Noss, I saw the white-eyed birds sitting on their eggs side by side 



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