Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh 3793 



The following communications were read: — 



I. Notice of the Bridled Guillemot (Uria lachrymans, Temm.), shot near North 

 Berwick; by John Alexander Smith, M.D. The bridled or ringed guillemot, Dr. 

 Smith said, derived its name, and apparently its principal distinctive character, from 

 a ring of white feathers which encircles its eyes, and from which a white band extends 

 backwards, in this specimen, for an inch and a half along the usual dividing line 

 which exists here in the guillemot. On a closer comparison, however, between the 

 Uria troile, Linn., and this bird, we find the bill of the U. lachrymans to be smaller, 

 and more slender, and the bird to be apparently altogether rather less in size. These 

 distinctions, however, he observed, are by no means well marked or decided in their 

 character. Dr. Smitb stated that this U. lachrymans was one of three specimens which 

 were shot off North Berwick, in the end of June last year, each being along with a 

 flock of the common guillemot; and that Mr. John Kichardson, Pencailland (by 

 whose kindness he was enabled to exhibit it), informed him they generally occurred in 

 company with small flocks of the common species, and only in very small numbers ; 

 and that he never saw a flock of them by themselves : he stated also, that they seemed 

 very averse to take wing, always remaining on the water after the common guillemot 

 takes flight, and when fired at they generally attempted to escape by diving frequently, 

 and swimming a great distance under water. Mr. Richardson has been in the habit 

 of shooting over the Firth near North Berwick, more or less regularly, from March to 

 September, for the last fifteen or twenty years ; and although he has shot great num- 

 bers of the U. troile, it was only within the last two or three years that he observed the 

 difference between it and the U. lachrymans, and since that time he has occasionally 

 noticed the latter bird during all these various months. Mr. Gould states that the 

 U. [lachrymans occurs on various parts of the coast of Britain, particularly those 

 of Wales. Mr. Yarrell mentions its occurrence on the coasts of Yorkshire and Dur- 

 ham. The late Professor M'Gillivray refers, in his British Birds, to a specimen shot 

 in the Firth of Forth in April, 1824, and another, a young bird, shot in winter with 

 the same distinguishing white ring round the eye: he says he always looked upon 

 them as mere varieties of the U. troile, and thereupon paid little attention to them ; 

 and he considers the question of its being a distinct species as still very doubtful. Sir 

 W. Jardine, in the * Naturalist's Library,' says, " We have never had the good fortune 

 to meet the bridled guillemot in Scotland, nor do the fishermen, or inhabitants near 

 the trading places, — almost always very correct in their distinctions of the creatures 

 frequenting their vicinity, — know it.'' The permanency of the while markings already 

 alluded to, both in winter and summer, in male and female, and apparently in young 

 as well as old birds ; and the statements of naturalists of its breeding places being dis- 

 tinct from the U. troile, as at the island of Grimsey, north of Iceland, visited by Mr. 

 Procter, as well as the fact stated by him, that the inhabitants always set apart these 

 birds, and selected their eggs as distinct from the common guillemot ; all give an ad- 

 ditional interest to any details of its habits, aud tend to strengthen the belief of its 

 being possibly a distinct species. Dr. Smith also stated, that, from the careless way in 

 which some of our sportsmen noticed the birds which they shot, he was almost inclined 

 to think the young of the razorbill (Alca torda), which has a white line running from 

 the eye forwards to the bill, may have been mistaken for this rarer bird ; and, by rather 

 a strange oversight, he found this white marking of the Alca torda described as be- 

 longing to the U. lachrymans, in the notes added to the 8vo edition of Cuvier's ' Animal 

 Kingdom,' recently published by Orr & Co., London. The U. lachrymans, Dr. Smith 

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