304 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
in rapid succession. Thus a bird would dive to reappear in a few 
seconds flying, only to flop down and fly below the water again. The 
red bill and red feet show conspicuously both in flight and in swimming. 
The gray patches like spectacles about the eyes, the dark ring 
about the neck, the stout chubby build, small black wings, and black 
backs are all good field marks. 
Cepphus grylle (Linn.). 
Black Guillemot; “Sea Pigeon”; “Pigeon”; “Pitsulak” (Eskimo). 
Abundant summer resident along the entire coast. 
The Black Guillemot breeds on rocky islands in deep clefts in the 
rock where it lays one or two eggs, well protected by their position 
from the hand of man or the jaws of Eskimo dogs. It apparently 
prefers the clefts in the ancient metamorphic rocks of the eastern coast 
to those in the softer sedimentary rocks of the southern coast, al¬ 
though it is common there in localities. 
© 
Macoun has eggs from Big Island collected on June 20th, and from 
Ungava Bay on July 9th. Robert Bell found it everywhere on the 
Hudson Bay coast. 
Cartwright ( 1792 , vol. 1, p. 233) speaking of an Indian fishing 
for salmon says: “He had the skin of the leg of a sea-pigeon, which 
is scarlet, fastened on the shank of a cod-hook, tied to a cod-line. 
This he threw by hand down the stream, and played it in the same 
manner as we do a fly.” 
The Eskimo women are said formerly to have cut off the red feet 
of this bird, withdrawn the leg bones, and then filled the inflated 
skins with reindeer tallow, to provide a confection. 
We found the Black Guillemot one of the commonest and most 
universally distributed of the waterfowl along the eastern coast, but 
with the exception of a few near Battle Harbor, we saw only one in the 
Straits of Belle Isle. On our trip north from Battle Harbor to Nain 
we counted 464 birds of this species and 563 on the return. 
Mr. Schmitt at Nain has found their eggs in the middle of July. 
Cepphus mandtii (Licht.). 
Mandt’s Guillemot. 
Summer resident. 
The exact status of this species and its relation to the abundant 
C. grylle are somewhat doubtful. It is generally supposed to be 
