The Puffin is included in Professor Ansted’s list, but marked as occurring only in Guernsey and Sark. There are two specimens in the Museum; one in the ordinary summer plumage, and one apparently in the winter plumage above described; but it is difficult to be quite certain on the subject, as it has been smeared over with bird-stuffer’s paint, probably with the view of making it as like the ordinary summer plumage as possible.
159. RAZORBILL. Alca torda, Linnaeus. French, “Pingouin macroptere.”—The Razorbill is not by any means numerous in the Channel Islands, but a few breed about Ortack, and, as has been said before, in Alderney, but nowhere else; and they are by no means so numerous as the Guillemot. It is resident throughout the year, though perhaps more common in the autumn than at any other time. Mr. Harvey Brown,[30] however, mentions seeing a small flock swim by with the tide, at the north-end of Herm, in January. Mr. MacCulloch writes me word he has a note of a Razorbill Auk shot in Guernsey on the 14th February, 1847; this, of course, is only a young Razorbill of the previous year, which had not at that time fully developed its bill.
The Razorbill is included in Professor Ansted’s list, but only marked as occurring in Guernsey. There are two Razorbills in the Museum, one in summer and one in winter plumage.
160. CORMORANT. Phalacrocorax carbo, Linnaeus. French, “Grand cormoran.”—The Cormorant is by no means common in the Islands; I have never seen it about Guernsey, though I have seen one or two near Herm; I do not know that it breeds anywhere in the Islands, except at Burhou, and there only one or two pairs breed. I was shown the nesting-place just at the opening of a small sort of cavern; there was, however, only the remains of one egg that had been hatched, and probably the young gone off with its parents. I, however, received an adult bird and a young bird of the year, shot in the harbour at Alderney in August of that year, and those are the only Channel Island specimens of the Cormorant that I have seen.