Plate CCXVIII. Male and Female.
Bill rather stout, black; feet black; general colour of upper parts greyish-black, sides of the head and throat tinged with brown; lower fore neck, breast, abdomen, edges of wings, and tips of secondaries white; sides streaked with greyish-black; a line of white encircling the eye, and extending upwards of an inch behind it, but in some individuals wanting. In winter, the sides of the head and neck, the fore part of the latter, with the lower parts, white.
Male, 171/2, 30.
More or less abundant during winter on the coast of Massachusetts and Maine, rarely as far south as New York. Breeds in vast multitudes on the Rocky Islands of the Gulf of St Lawrence, Newfoundland, and Labrador. Occasionally found in Hudson's Bay.
Uria Troile, Bonap. Syn. p. 424.
Uria Troile, Foolish Guillemot, Swains. & Rich. F. Bor. Amer. v. ii. p. 477.
Foolish Guillemot or Murre, Nutt. Man. v. ii. p. 526.
Foolish Guillemot, Uria Troile, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. iii. p. 142.
482. 5. Uria Grylle, Linn. Black Guillemot.
Plate CCXIX. Adult in summer and winter, and Young.
Bill shorter than the head, rather slender, black; feet vermilion, tinged with carmine; general colour of plumage deep black, on the upper parts tinged with green, on the lower with brown; a patch on each wing, including the secondary coverts and some of the small feathers white, of which colour also are the axillars and lower wing-coverts. In winter the general colour of the plumage white; the sides of the head, the neck all round, the lower parts, and the rump being of that colour, more or less shaded with grey; upper part of head obscurely mottled with greyish-black; back and scapulars black, each feather tipped with greyish-white, those of the latter more broadly; wings and tails brownish-black, the former with a conspicuous white patch as in summer. Young at first covered with soft, thick, brownish-black down.
Adult, 137/8, 211/2.
Accidental as far south, on the eastern coast, as New York; not rare from thence eastward, during winter. Breeds from the Bay of Fundy along all the rocky shores, to Labrador, and the highest latitudes, where considerable numbers even spend the winter.