464 
ALCADiE. 
resemble the eggs of the razor-bill much more than those 
of the common guillemot, both as to shape and character. 
The tyste, by which name this bird is known in Shet¬ 
land, sits very close, and is easily caught upon its eggs; 
it frequents and seems very partial to those still, deep 
inlets of the sea, there so numerous, in which the water 
is so beautifully clear that I have observed them, when 
I have been standing two or three hundred feet above 
them, using their wings in diving, or as it were flying 
under water, as distinctly as I have seen them skimming 
over its surface; they are not nearly so expert in diving 
as the razor-bill and common guillemot, and when dis¬ 
turbed usually take to flight, passing very close to the 
surface of the water; they are, however, strong upon the 
wing, and rise with ease to the precipices in which they 
breed; their feet, when alive, are very beautiful, and 
of the brightest coral red. Mr. Salmon tells me that 
on Papa Westra, one of the Orkney Islands, the Black 
Guillemots are so common, that he has seen two or 
three of their nests under one piece of rock. 
