PYGOPODES. ALGID Ji. after Brunnich, and gave some interesting details on its
Uria bruennichi, Sabine.*
BRUNNICH’S GUILLEMOT.
THE THICK-BILLED GUILLEMOT.
Uria Brunnichii.
B runnich’s Guillemot is at once distinguished, at any
season of the year, from the Common Guillemot by the
shortness, stoutness, angularity, and greater depth of its
bill, and in reference to this peculiarity it has been called
the Thick-billed Guillemot: it is also of a much blacker
colour on the upper parts. It was first described by Briin-
nich, in his £ Ornithologia Borealis’ (p. 27), under the name
of Uria troille, and an alteration of the specific term being
necessary, the late Sir Edward Sabine named this Guillemot
* Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. p. 538 (1818).
habits in his ‘Memoir of the Birds of Greenland’ (Linn.
Trans, xii. p. 538).
This species has been included in the British list upon
somewhat slight evidence. Thompson (B. of Ireland, iii.
p. 218) adduces Sabine as an authority for its occurrence on
the coast of Kerry, in July 1833, on the strength of a short
notice of eleven lines in W. Ainsworth’s ‘ Account of the
Caves of Ballybunian,’ App. A. p. 78 (1834). Sabine, however,
merely says, “ Of sea birds I recognised in flight * * *
—of guillemots, the troile, Brunnichii, grylle and alba ” :
the last word a misprint for “ alle,” Readers must decide
for themselves whether even Sabine’s identifications of the
Brunnich’s Guillemot and the Little Auk on the wing, can
be trusted; but at all events no one has recorded those
birds from the coast of Kerry in the breeding-season since
his time. As regards a bird received from Youghal by Dr.
Harvey of Cork, about the 1st February, 1850 (Thompson,
loc. cit.), it seems possible that it really was a Brunnich’s
Guillemot, being described as “ very black where that colour
prevails.” Sir J. C. Ross’s statement (App. Narr. Second
Voy., p. xliv.), “ I have also met with it at Unst, the
northernmost of the Shetland Islands, and in several paits
of Scotland ” ; must be accepted with reserve, for neither by
Saxby nor by any other competent ornithologist has it been
found in Shetland up to the present time. As regards
Orkney, all that Baikie and Heddle can say in 1848 is that
one shot there several years previously was in the College
Museum, Edinburgh : probably the same specimen of which
Macgillivray says that he found it among some skins fiom
Orkney belonging to the late Mr. Wilson, janitor to the
University. The late Sir W. E. Milner asserted (Zool.
p. 2059) that Brunnich’s Guillemot was found breeding on
the rock of Soa, St. Kilda, where one egg was taken ; but the
correctness of his identification, or rather that of Graham of
York, may be questioned, inasmuch as no subsequent visitoi
has been able to see or hear of it. Equally unsatisfactoiy is
Mr. Thomas Edward’s bare statement (Zool. p. 0971) that