THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 273 



quite marvellous, would, by a sudden jerk, throw himself aside to the right 

 or left, and escape the danger. Now he would run his arm into a fissure, 

 which, if he found it too deep, he would probe with a boat-hook. When- 

 ever he chanced to touch a bird, it would come out whirring like a shot in 

 his face; while others came flying from afar toward their beloved retreats 

 with so much impetuosity as almost to alarm the bold rocksman. After 

 much toil and trouble he procured only a few eggs, it not being then the 

 height of the breeding season. You may imagine, good reader, how relieved 

 I felt when I saw Mr. Emery drawn up, and once more standing on the 

 bold eminence waving his hat as a signal of success. This happened in one 

 of the Magdeleine Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



During severe winters, I have seen the Black Guillemot playing over the 

 waters as far south as the shores of Maryland. Such excursions, however, 

 are of rare occurrence, and it is seldom that any of these birds are to be seen 

 until you reach the Bay of Boston. About the different entrances of the 

 Bay of Fundy, this species is a constant resident, and many individuals 

 breed in fissures, at a moderate height above the water, on the rocky shores 

 of the Island of Grand Manan, and others in the same latitude. Proceeding 

 farther toward the north-east, we found them on Jesticoe Island, and where- 

 ever else we happened to touch on our way to Labrador, in which country 

 there is a regular nursery of these birds. 



Unlike the Foolish and Thick-billed Guillemots, or the Razor-billed Auk, 

 they do not confine themselves to any particular spot, but take up their 

 abode for the season in any place that presents suitable conveniences. 

 Wherever there are fissures in the rocks, or great piles of blocks with holes 

 in their interstices, there you may expect to find the Black Guillemot. 



Whether European writers have spoken of this species at random, or after 

 due observation, I cannot say. All I know is, that every one of them whose 

 writings I have consulted, says that the Black Guillemot lays only one egg. 

 As I have no reason whatever to doubt their assertion, I might be tempted 

 to suppose that our species differs from theirs, were I not perfectly aware 

 that birds in different places will construct different nests, and lay more or 

 fewer eggs. Our species always deposits three, unless it may have been 

 disturbed; and this fact I have assured myself of by having caught the birds 

 in more than twenty instances sitting on that number. Nay, on several 

 occasions, at Labrador, some of my party and myself saiv several Black 

 Guillemots sitting on eggs in the same fissure of a rock, where every bird 

 had three eg-gs under it, a fact which I communicated to my friend Thomas 

 Nuttall. What was most surprising to me was, that even the fishermen 

 there thought that this bird laid only a single egg; and when I asked them 

 how they knew, they simply and good-naturedly answered that they had 



Vol. VII. 39 



