THE GUILLEMOT. 
301 
scribes the egg of the common Guillemot {Uria Troile), 
and says it has often been a matter of surprise to him that 
its eggs are not swept altogether into the sea by the severe 
gales of wind ; as it is, many of their eggs are precipitated 
into the sea when the parent birds fly too hastily away. He 
adds, were the eggs of the guillemot, which are very narrow 
at one end, " shaped hke those of the majority of birds, 
nothing could save them : their form, which is peculiar to 
themselves amongst the eggs of the sea- fowl, is their only 
protection ; it gives them greater steadiness when at rest, 
and where they have room to roll, the larger end moving 
round the smaller in a circle, keeps them in their original 
position : when placed upon the centre of a table and set in 
motion they will not wander far."*^ We may remark that 
the egg of the guillemot is very large compared with the 
size of the bird ; and it is to be noted of northern animals 
generally frequenting the sea, that the young are very big, 
and soon attain the size of their parents. 
Mr. Rae, in his ^Narrative of an Expedition to the 
Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847,^ mentions in 
a note^, the great attachment which the foolish guillemot 
manifests to its young. He tells us that in the Orkney 
* P. 24. 
