104 



COULTERNEB. 



collar ; the sides of the head and all the under parts are pure white ; 

 the chin in some is grey, in others white, and the cheeks are grey ; 

 quills dusky ; tail short, and consists of sixteen feathers ; legs and feet 

 orange ; claws black, the inner one much hooked. 



It is remarked that the bill of this bird varies much according to age ; 

 at first it has no furrows, and is of a dusky-colour, the yellow colour 

 and furrows increasing with age. 



These birds appear on many parts of our rocky coast about the 

 middle of April, and begin to breed about the middle of May. On the 

 stupendous cliffs of Dover, and such places, they deposit their single 

 egg, in the holes and crevices ; in other places they burrow like rabbits, 

 if the soil is light ; but more frequently take possession of rabbit-bur- 

 rows, and lay their egg many feet under ground. This is the case on 

 Priestholm Isle off the coast of Anglesea, and other small islands off 

 St. David's, where the soil is sandy. 



*I am much disposed to question the fact of the Coulterneb's ever 

 dispossessing rabbits, much less of killing and devouring their young, 

 of which it is also accused ; and it would require more authentic testi- 

 mony than I have yet met with to convince me of this alleged robbery ; 

 the only apparent evidence being that they are found burrowing along 

 with rabbits in similar holes. We might, on the same sort of evidence, 

 bring a charge against a troop of ducks for robbing a family of geese 

 of a pond, because both parties were seen swimming in it. I have very 

 commonly found, in the same sand-bank, numerous perforations crowded 

 into a small space, the work of various species of solitary bees (An- 

 thophora, Halictus, Andrena, &c.,) side by side, and intermingled with 

 those of sand- wasps (Sphecidce ;) but no naturalist who has accurately 

 observed the proceedings of these insects, would conclude that they 

 were mutual robbers, merely because he observed them going in and 

 out of contiguous holes. 



In some instances, I am certain that the Coulterneb must form its 

 own burrows. " In one part of this island," (Akaroe,) says Professor 

 Hooker, " where there is a considerable quantity of rich loose mould, 

 the Coulternebs breed in vast numbers, forming holes three or four feet 

 below the surface, resembling rabbit-burrows, at the bottom of which 

 they lay a single white egg, about the size of that of a lapwing, upon 

 the bare earth. Our people dug out about twenty of these birds, which 

 they afterwards assured me made an excellent sea-pie." 1 He elsewhere 

 tells us that Iceland contains no indigenous quadrupeds, and he does not 



Hooker's Tour in Iceland, 



