Plumage dense, very soft, blended; on the head very short. Wings rather short, narrow, acute; primary quills curved, tapering, the first longest, the second little shorter, the rest rapidly graduated; secondaries short, incurved, broad, rounded. Tail very short, rounded, of twelve narrow feathers.
Bill black; inside of mouth gamboge-yellow. Iris dark brown. Feet black. The general colour of the plumage is greyish-black on the upper parts; the sides of the head and upper part of the neck black, tinged with brown. A white bar across the wing, formed by the tips of the secondary quills, and a line of the same encircling the eye, and extending behind it. The lower parts white.
Length to end of tail 17 1/2 inches, to end of claws 19 1/4, to end of wings 17 1/2; extent of wings 30 inches; wing from flexure 7 1/2; tail 2; tarsus 1 3/12; middle toe 1 7/12, its claw 5/12. Weight 2 lb.
Adult Female. Plate CCXVIII. Fig. 2.
The Female is similar to the male, and, when mature, has the white line round and behind the eye.
THE BLACK GUILLEMOT.
Uria Grylle, Lath.
PLATE CCXIX. Adult in Summer, Adult in Winter, and Young.
It was a frightful thing to see my good Captain, Henry Emery, swinging on a long rope upon the face of a rocky and crumbling eminence, at a height of several hundred feet from the water, in search of the eggs of the Black Guillemot, with four or five sailors holding the rope above, and walking along the edge of the precipice. I stood watching the motions of the adventurous sailor. When the friction of the rope by which he was suspended loosened a block, which with awful crash came tumbling down from above him, he, with a promptness and dexterity that appeared to me quite marvellous, would, by a sudden jerk, throw himself aside to the right or left, and escape the danger. Now he would run his arm into a fissure, which, if he found it too deep, he would probe with a boat-hook. Whenever he chanced to touch a bird, it would come out whirring like a shot in his face; while others came flying from afar toward their beloved retreats with so much impetuosity as almost to alarm the bold rocksman. After much toil and trouble he procured only a few eggs, it not being then the height of the breeding season. You may imagine, good Reader, how relieved I felt when I saw Mr Emery drawn up, and once more standing on the bold eminence waving his hat as a signal of success. This happened in one of the Magdeleine Islands, in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
During severe winters, I have seen the Black Guillemot playing over the waters as far south as the shores of Maryland. Such excursions, however, are of rare occurrence, and it is seldom that any of these birds are to be seen until you reach the Bay of Boston. About the different entrances of the Bay of Fundy, this species is a constant resident, and many individuals breed in fissures, at a moderate height above the water, on the rocky shores of the Island of Grand Manan, and others in the same latitude. Proceeding farther toward the north-east, we found them on Jesticoe Island, and wherever else we happened to touch on our way to Labrador, in which country there is a regular nursery of these birds.
Unlike the Foolish and Thick-billed Guillemots, or the Razor-billed Auk, they do not confine themselves to any particular spot, but take up their abode for the season in any place that presents suitable conveniences. Wherever there are fissures in the rocks, or great piles of blocks with holes in their interstices, there you may expect to find the Black Guillemot.