COAOION GUILLE^tOT. 
3 
with brown and grev of various hues, the markings consisting of blotches, spots, and scrawls of darker shades of 
the same colours. To describe these curious eggs accurately would need an endless series of coloured plates. 
Though the eggs of the Common Guillemot differ to such an extent, I have good cause for believing that 
each bird always lays those of tlie same colour and markings, lowards the end of May 18G5 I removed tliiee 
eggs from a small ledge on the north side of the Biss Hock, and on visiting the spot about ten dajs later 
found three more in the same situations, and so exactly like the former as to he undistinguishahle. Aj,ain 
returning a fortnight later, three more, similar in colouring of the shell and corresponding almost maik for 
mark, were obtained. No other Guillemots wore breeding within twenty or thirty yards of that portion of the 
rock, and though I frequently examined the spot from the summit through the glasses, no more than tliiee 
pairs frequenting the ledge ivere observed. 
"When the young are fit to leave the ledges on which they were hatched, the evidence of many ti ustworthy 
individuals goes to prove that they are either carried down on their parents backs or lifted in their beaks by 
the neck, and so transported to their natural element. For my own part, I can offer no opinion on the subject, 
having, in spite of many attempts in different localities, failed to witness the operation. Numbers of juveniles 
have fallen or been knocked over from a height of one hundred up to two hundred feet while I have been 
near at hand, but unless striking against a projecting rock in their descent, they never, so far as I was able to 
ascertain, sustained the slightest injury. In the summer of 18G5 I reared one that dropped considerably over 
two hundred feet from one of the highest ledges on the west side of the Bass Bock, and only missed the side 
of our boat by a couple of feet. This interesting little stranger lived for three or four months, apparently 
contented and happy, roosting every night in the coal-cellar, where he climbed to the highest pinnacle of coal, 
evidently imagining himself on his native Bass Bock. In the morning he generally appeared as a Black 
Guillemot till restored to his natural colour by a salt-water hath in a large washing-tub. Like most favourites, 
he came to an untimely end ; one morning after a heavy thunder-storm he was found dead at his accustomed 
resting-place on the top of the coals, having perished from the combined effects of wet and cold, caused by the 
bursting of a water-pipe over his head — dying where he sat, rather than make an attempt to quit his post. 
In 1871 we took several young ones from the Bass Bock between the 10th and 13th of August ; these 
appeared to he the latest stragglers left on the rock. The whole party proved exceedingly easy to rear, taking 
the food offered to them with the greatest avidity ; they evinced a decided partiality for herrings, though when 
these Avere not procurable they were forced to put up with udiiting. Mhile at Canty Bay the little diveis were 
confined in one of the boathouses, and we treated them daily to a swum in the waters of the Firth. Having 
been carried dowm to the shore they were flung some fifteen or twenty yards— as far as the men could pitch 
them — out into the sea, when they immediately started back, swimming, fluttering, and flapping, to the best of 
their ability, uttering all the time their monotonous and plaintive cry “ quiUij, qidlly, quilly, qiiiUi/,” and 
appearing in the greatest trouble till, having been rolled ashore by the breakers, they sueceeded in scrambling up 
the shinMe, and w'erc safe back in charge of their captors. IVliile sunning themselves on the rocks to dry their 
ruffled dowm and sprouting quills, their greatest delight wms to crawd up the sleeves of the boatmen’s rough 
pea-jackets and endeavour to seek repose ; wdieri shaken out again they resented the injury by giving vent to a 
succession of shrill notes of lamentation. These birds ivere taken south to Brighton, and lived in confinement 
for several years ; there proved to he no necessity for pinioning them or cutting their wings, this species being 
unable to rise from land unless assisted by the drop from the cliffs to which they resort for breeding-purposes. 
At sea they usually flap over the water, striking the surface wdth their feet for from ten to twmnty yards, or 
perhaps double that distance*, before rising on wing, and the pond to ivhich they had access being only some tive- 
* The distance they flap over the -water before rising on -wing depends on the amount of food recently consumed ; if light they fly off with 
comparative ease, though when crammed with fish they are often incapable of rising from the surface, and after fluttering a short distance usually 
attempt to seek safety by diving. 
