THE COMMON GUILLEMOT. 
207 
Audubon gives a very full account of this diver, remarking 
that it is “ at all times an extremely shy and vigilant bird, ever 
on the alert to elude its enemies. The sight of man seems inva- 
riably to alarm it, even in the wildest countries in which it breeds. 
I have often observed that while yet several hundred yards from 
them they marked my approach with great watchfulness” (Orn. 
Biog. vol. iii. p. 21). They are not by any means so difficult of 
approach on the Irish coast, though their extreme quickness of 
sight is very apparent. 
The red-throated diver is about equally common in Ireland, 
England, and Scotland. 
THE COMMON GUILLEMOT. 
Eoolish Guillemot 
Uria trolley Linn, (sp.) 
Colymbus troile } Linn, (sp.) 
Lesser Guillemot 1 Young and old in 
Uria minor , Gmel. (sp.) j winter plumage. 
Breeds at the many suitable marine cliffs around the 
island : some remain throughout the year. 
At the Gobbins, a range of lofty basaltic cliffs outside the northern 
entrance to Belfast Bay, a considerable number of guillemots 
annually breed. They arrive generally in April, but do not lay 
before the end of May, when their large single eggs, and those of 
the razorbills, are deposited on the bare rock. In the late season 
of 1849, they had not commenced laying here on the 2nd of June, 
when the cliffs were searched for eggs.* About Carrick-a-rede, 
near the Giant's Causeway, I observed a number of guillemots in 
June 1842. At the island of Bathlin, off this coast. Dr. J. D. 
Marshall informs us that they “were congregated in very consi- 
* Mr. Poole remarks, in reference to the Wexford coast, that he has seen their eggs 
on the 15th of May and 24th of June. 
