214 
ALCIM. 
of a common one measured at the same time barely an inch. It is much mottled 
with black and white on the flanks, and very black where that colour prevails.” 
Sir William Jardine remarks, that “ Branniclds guillemot is 
easily distinguished from the common species by the thicker form 
of the bill, and the greater angle of the mandible, and also by 
the much deeper tint of the head and neck, and indeed of the 
whole plumage.” — 'Brit. Birds/ vol. iv. p. 218. 
This guillemot has been met with at the Shetland (Sir James 
C. Ross) and Orkney islands (Macgillivray) and on the coast of 
Caithness.* 
THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 
Spotted Guillemot. 
JJria grylle , Linn, (sp.) 
Colymbus grylle , Linn, (sp.) 
Is found around the coast, and is permanently resident. 
Its breeding-haunts — generally in lofty marine cliffs — are much 
of the same character as those of the common guillemot, though 
sites of different kinds are chosen for its nests : both species are 
often found together at the same locality ; but the black, every- 
where known to me, in much more limited numbers than the 
other. It breeds at the places named under the latter species. 
About twelve pair are said to frequent the Gobbins annually. 
About Carrick-a-rede I remarked them in June 1842/ At Ratli- 
lin, Dr. J. D. Marshall informs us that — This bird frequents 
the southern or Ushet extremity of the island — a place totally 
devoid of any other sea-fowl — and the shores which immediately 
front Ballycastle, where I found them, in number about thirty, 
flying backwards and forwards among the rocks, where they had 
* It is in a list of rare birds — some of them the rarest in the British catalogue — 
obtained in the county of Caithness by Mr. Eric Sinclair of Wick, and published by 
Mr. James Wilson, in his c Voyage Round the Coasts of Scotland and the Isles,’ 
vol. ii. p. 179. 
