THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 
m 
second ; all covered above with numerous scutella, webbed, the lateral ones 
with small margins ; claws small, slightly arched, compressed, rather acute, 
the middle one larger, with a dilated inner edge. 
Plumage dense, very soft, blended ; on the head very short. Wings 
rather short, narrow, acute ; primary quills curved, tapering, the first 
longest, the second little shorter, the rest rapidly graduated ; secondaries 
short, incurved, broad, rounded. Tail very short, rounded, of twelve 
narrow feathers. 
Bill black ; inside of mouth gamboge-yellow. Iris dark brown. Feet 
black. The general colour of the plumage is greyish-black on the upper 
parts ; the sides of the head and upper part of the neck black, tinged with 
brown. A white bar across the wing, formed by the tips of the secondary 
quills, and a line of the same encircling the eye, and extending behind it. 
The lower parts white. 
Length to end of tail 17 h inches, to end of claws 19 4 , to end of wings 
171 ; extent of wings 30 inches ; wing from flexure 7 k ; tail 2 ; tarsus 1 7 \ ; 
middle toe 1 T V, its claw fV. Weight 2 lbs. 
Adult Female. 
The female is similar to the male, and, when mature, has the white line 
around and behind the eye. 
THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 
Uria Grylle, Linn . 
PLATE OCOCLKXIY.— Adult in Summer, Adult in Winter, and Young. 
It was a frightful thing to see my good Captain, Henry Emery, swinging 
on a long rope upon the face of a rocky and crumbling eminence, at a height 
of several hundred feet from the water, in search of the eggs of the Black 
Guillemot, with four or five sailors holding the rope above, and walking 
along the edge of the precipice. I stood watching the motions of the 
adventurous sailor. When the friction of the rope by which he was 
suspended loosened a block, which with awful crash camq tumbling down 
from above him, he, with a promptness and dexterity that appeared to me 
