THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 
217 
under my own observation.* They were all in the plumage of the 
Greenland dove, being that of winter; but when crossing the 
bay from Carrickfergus to Bangor, on the 29th of January, 
1835, I remarked one in its black summer attire, f as well as 
two more in that already named as proper to the season. On the 
16th of August, 1848, an old bird, shot on the bay within a 
quarter of a mile of Belfast, was in full winter plumage. Dr. 
Fleming, in his f History of British Animals/ remarks, that he 
has “ observed the birds with black plumage about the end of 
February,” and “ by the end of March, they are common in this, 
their summer dress” (p. 135). 
The stomach of one of these birds, shot in Belfast Bay about 
the middle of September, was filled with the remains of Crustacea. 
The only portions that could be determined positively, owing to 
the state of decomposition in which they were, belonged to the 
hermit crab ( Pagurus Bernhardus ) of large size. 
Mr. Selby remarks, that “ in the northern parts of Scotland 
and its isles this is a numerous species, but becomes of rarer 
occurrence as we approach the English coast, where indeed it is 
but occasionally met with ; and although Montagu has mentioned 
it as resorting to the Farn Islands, I can safely assert that this 
has not been the case for the last twenty-five or thirty years” 
(p. 427) : — the work was published in 1833. Mr. Macgillivray, 
describing it as a British bird, states, that “ all the breeding- 
places are to the north of the Tweed and Solway.” Sir William 
Jardine also notices “ the coasts of the south of Scotland being 
near to its southern range in Britain,” J but mentions at the same 
time his having met with the species at the Isle of Man (where he 
believed it to be breeding), and the record of its occasional occur- 
rence on the southern coast of England. It is interesting, there- 
* Sometimes called sea-pigeon at Larne and at Lambay, and parrot at Roundstone 
(Mr. J. Nimmo). 
f On the 12th of February, 1849, Mr. R. Warren, jun., shot one of these birds in 
complete breeding plumage, and saw another in the same state in Cork Harbour. 
t e Brit. Birds,’ vol. iv. p. 221. At Islay, I saw some of these birds which were 
shot there at the end of December 1848. 
