URIA GRYLLE.
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. 583.

Uria lacteola, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 798.

—— balthica, Brinn. Orn. Bor., p. 28.

— Grilla, Vieill. Gall. des Ois., tom. ii. pl. 294.

—— scapularis, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., vol. xii, p- 250, pl. 64.
Cephus grylle, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 562.

arcticus, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl., p- 988.

Meisneri, Brehm, ibid., p. 989 ?

—— Ferreensis, Brehm, ibid., p. 990.

Uria (Uria) grylle, Baird, Cat. of N. Amer. Birds in Mus. Smiths. Inst., p. lv.

 

 

 

Ir will not be necessary for me to enter into the controversy respecting the specific differences observable in
the Black Guillemots from various parts of 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- 17, and that
they comprise a diagnosis of the four or five species known. Of these, the bird here figured is doubtless
the one to which Linneus assigned the specific term grylle, and the only one of 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
of reproduction. Montagu speaks of 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 of 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 of Scotland, and is especially abundant in the Ferroes, some parts of Iceland, and
along almost the entire coast of Norway. This species also occurs in America; but Mr. Cassin, in
Prof. Baird’s ‘ Birds of North America,’ p. 911, does not discriminate between it and Uria Mandti, which is
certainly found in the high northern parts of that continent, and of 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 ; bat this, I think, requires confirmation, since the only specimen he collected has passed out
of his hands, he knows not whither, and it is very likely to have been an example of the common species of
the Pacific Ocean, Uria columba.

The Uria grylle is perhaps the most distinctly marked, and, except the U. carbo, is the blackest of all the
Guillemots; its trivial name of black, however, is scarcely appropriate, and pred 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 of 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 of 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 of its spring
plumage, the entire neck being prettily mottled with sooty and white feathers ; and a Little Auk, killed in the
middle of 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 of 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 annie
its flights from one part of the ocean to another, or enable it to HOE its ascents to its lofty preales
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 of the most beautiful of our sea-birds, states that
in Britain all its breeding-places are to the north of the Tweed and Solway, and that the most southern lo-
calities with which he was acquainted are the Bass Rock and the Isle of May, at the mouth of the Firth of