462 
ALCADA2. 
NAT A TORES. 
ALCADjE. 
BLACK GUILLEMOT. 
Uria grylle. 
plate cxxyi. 
The seas of Shetland are everywhere enlivened by 
the presence of these pretty birds, and great numbers 
of them breed amongst the rocks round which they flow. 
The Black Guillemot is also met with on the Orkneys, 
and Western Isles of Scotland, and Montague says that 
a few of them breed in Wales, near Tenbigh. They 
make no nest, but lay their eggs, which are always two 
in number, in such situations as the place affords. On 
some of the islands which present a steep precipice to 
the sea, they make use of holes or crevices in the rocks, 
in which the eggs are laid at various distances from the 
mouth of the hole, from one to two feet — which is 
most usual—to three or four; on other islands less pre¬ 
cipitous, it deposits them in cavities under or between 
fragments of rock and large stones, with which the beach 
is strewed. In one place several pairs rear their young 
ones in crannies between the stones which form the ruins 
of an old wall on the top of a single rock at sea, and at 
an elevation of fifty or sixty feet above its surface. The 
Black Guillemot resorts annually to the same holes, which 
were well-known by the boys who accompanied me in 
search of their eggs, who went immediately to the places 
