Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/94

64 make it conspicuous. For example, there is a well-marked variety of the Common Guillemot, the Ringed or Bridled Guillemot of science, distinguished by an unusual development of white round the eye and along the furrow behind it. One such individual I was fortunate in discovering upon a crowded cliff, and, as in the case of the Lapwing with the broken leg or the Yellow Bunting with the injured foot, the identity of the bird was beyond dispute, and one could observe that it appropriated to itself a particular position upon a particular ledge.

Guillemots and Razorbills return at intervals to the breeding stations early in the season, and these visits are repeated with growing frequency until the birds are finally established. I have witnessed these periodic returns during March in the south of England, and during April in the north-west of Ireland, and I am informed that in the latter district such visits may occur as early as February. Gätke, who had ample opportunity of observing the birds in Heligoland, puts their return at an even earlier date. "They visit their breeding places," he says, "in flocks of thousands at the New Year, often even as early as December, as though they wanted to make sure of their former haunts being well preserved and ready for their reception." Such visits, however, are irregular in occurrence; the birds" arrive, and, after spending a short time upon the ledges, disappear. And since there is not the same evidence in their coming and going