File:The birds of Europe (1837) (14770558423).jpg

Identifier: birdsEuropeVGoul (find matches)
Title: The birds of Europe
Year: 1837 (1830s)
Authors: Gould, John, 1804-1881
Subjects: Pictorial works Birds
Publisher: London, Printed by R. and J.E. Taylor, pub. by the author
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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, following its prey and sporting in the midst of the waves. Its food consistsexclusively offish of various species, which, however rapid they may be in their motions, it captures with theutmost facility. Its single egg is deposited on the naked rock, either in some natural fissure or crevice just above the reachof the highest tides ; its colour white tinged with buff, marked with spots and crooked lines of brownish black.The young take to the water immediately after exclusion from the egg, and follow the adults with fearlessconfidence. There exists but little or no difference between the size or plumage of the sexes. In summer the wholeof the upper surface is black, with the exception of a large white space before the eyes and the tips of thesecondary quill-feathers; the whole of the under surface white; bill and legs black, the former being markedwith oblique transverse furrows of a lighter tint. The Plate represents an adult in its summer dress about two thirds of the natural size.
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BAS O B - BIJLTL A IT IAlca Torda; f£imwJ McMre- h on/ Stew fa/fA £. Gotdd/. JH/:<~;J. R/i^tt;;^;,^. RAZOR-BILLED AUK. Alca torda, Linn. Le Pingoin macroptere. The habits and manners of the Razor-bill so closely approximate to those of the Common Guillemot (UnaTroile, Linn.), that the same description equally applies to both; to enter into them fully would therefore beonly repeating what we have said in our account of the last-mentioned bird: like it, the Razor-bill inhabits thewide expanse of the ocean, the severities of which it braves with the utmost indifference ; indeed it appearsto rejoice in the agitation of the billows, that brings around it multitudes of small fish, which constitute itsonly support; like it, the Razor-bill, when called upon by the impulse of nature to the great work of incubation,seeks the inaccessible cliffs round the coasts of our island, on which it assembles in immense flocks, todeposit each its single egg on the barren ledges of the rock; and so oft

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