BRUNN IC Il’s ( lU I BLEMOT. 
293 
largest blotches. It appears also that where the colouring 
matter is faint and scantily supplied, it most frequently takes 
the form of streaks ; and that when the green is pale, it is 
nearly always of a yellowish tint. At Burrafirth I have some- 
times obtained a very beautiful variety, being white, closely 
mapped all over with reddish brown and warm purplish grey. 
That represented by the middle figure of plate cxxiv. in Mr 
liewitson’s second volume, is also rare, and so are those so 
closely mottled all over with the same tint of reddish brown 
as at a little distance to appear like mahogany. The average 
size of the egg is three inches four lines by two inches ; but 1 
have in my possession one which measures three inches nine 
lines by two inches two lines ; and another as small as three 
inches by one inch ten lines. When the Guillemots are dis- 
turbed, they will sometimes raise a cry a good deal like that 
of a game cock when he sees a bird flying overhead, but in a 
very much deeper tone. 
BEUNNICH’S GUILLEMOT. 
Uria BrunnicMi. 
This species has been killed in Orkney, but it holds its 
place in the Shetland list solely on the authority of Captain 
Sir James C. Eoss, who reports having seen it off the island 
of Unst. A few other asserted instances have been mentioned 
to me from time to time, but on investigation the evidence 
has always proved to be untrustworthy. Among the multi- 
tudes of common GuiEemots which I have seen killed in 
Shetland, not one has borne any resemblance to it whatever ; 
and on my offering a reward to the climbers for a specimen, 
the invariable answer has been that, to their knowledge, no 
such bird existed. The writer of a list of the birds of these 
islands in the “Zoologist” for 1861 describes it as “permanent,” 
but tliere is not the slightest authority for any such statement. 
