Black Guillemot.
Colymbus grylle, Linn. Faun. Suec., p. 52.
Uria grylle, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 797.
Colymbus lacteolus, Gmel. edit. Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 683.
Uria lacteola, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 798.
^^^Shalthica, Briinn. Orn. Bor., p. 28.
Grilla, Vieill. Gal. des Ois., tom. ii. pi. 294.
— scapularis, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., vol. xii. p. 250, pi. 64.
' Cephus grylle, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 562.
arcticus, Brehni, Vog. Deutschl., p. 988.
Meisneri, Brehm, ibid., p. 989 ?
Feerroeensis, Brehm, ibid., p. 990.
Uria (Uria) grylle, Baird, Cat. of N. Amer. Birds in Mus. Smiths. Inst., p. lv.
It will not be necessary for me to enter into the controversy respecting the specific differences observable in
the Black Guillemots from various parts o f the world, inasmuch as the subject has been ably investigated
in Mr. Newton’s “ Notes on the Birds observed in Spitzbergen,” which, for the information of those who are
not already acquainted with them I may mention, will be found in ‘The Ibis’ for 1865, p. 517, and that
they comprise a diagnosis o f the four or five species known. Of these, the bird here figured is doubtless
the one to which Linnaeus assigned the specific term grylle, and the only one o f the form which inhabits our
islands, or, rather, visits, at one season or other, the seas surrounding our shores. This extremely pretty
species is more plentiful in the northern than in the southern division of Britain, particularly at the season
o f reproduction» Montagu speaks o f its breeding in his time at Tenby, in Pembrokeshire; and Pennant, at
Llandudno, in Anglesea; but we must now, I believe, go as far north as the Isle of Man if we wish to
see the bird thus engaged. It is much more local than most of the rock-birds, and many o f the stations that
are thronged in multitudes by the Common Guillemot, Razorbill, and Puffin are never visited by the present
species. In Ireland it breeds in more southern spots than in Great Britain; but it has numerous stations in
and around the coasts o f Scotland, and is especially abundant in the Ferroes, some parts of Iceland, and
along almost the entire coast o f Norway. This species also occurs in America; but Mr. Cassin, in
Prof. Baird’s ‘ Birds o f North America,’ p. 911, does not discriminate between it and Uria Mandti, which is
certainly found in the high northern parts o f that continent, and o f which I have a specimen, killed on Beechey
Island in June 1854, and presented to me by Dr. Lyall. The younger Mr. Whitely states that it is also
found in Japan; but this, I think, requires confirmation, since the only specimen he collected has passed out
o f his hands, he knows hot whither, and it is very likely to have been an example o f the common species of
the Pacific Ocean, Uria columba. '
The Uria grylle is perhaps the most distinctly marked, and, except the U. carlo, is the blackest of all the
Guillemots; its trivial name o f black, however, is scarcely appropriate, and pied or varied would also be
equally inapplicable. In summer only would the former term be at all suitable, and the others for the short
space o f time in winter during which a varied garb exists; but even then it is so continually changing that no
two specimens are precisely alike. Mr. Gatcombe believes there is yet much to be learned concerning the
time the change o f plumage takes place in this and many other sea-birds. For example, on the 26th of
December, 1863, he killed an old Black Guillemot which had already assumed more than half o f its spring
plumage, the entire neck being prettily mottled with sooty and white feathers ; and a Little Auk, killed in the
middle o f the same month was in the most perfect summer dress. Such birds are believed by some persons
to be either barren females or youthful males that have not yet mated. How frequently in autumn do we
observe Great Northern Divers, in their full summer costume^ associating with others, evidently adult, but
carrying the usual grey dress o f that season. When handled in the flesh, the Black Guillemot is found
to be such a short, round, and heavy mass, that one at first wonders how its small wings can sustain it during
its flights from one part o f the ocean to another, or enable it to perform its ascents to its lofty breeding-
places amid high rocks; but a very slight examination shows that, owing to its powerful pectoral muscles, it
is a bird of very strong and rapid flight.
Macgillivray, who considered the Black Guillemot one o f the most beautiful o f our sea-birds, states that
in Britain all its breeding-places are to the north o f the Tweed and Solway,, and that the most southern localities
with which he was acquainted are the Bass Rock and the Isle o f May, at the mouth of the Firth of