ummer a few
Guillemots, probably non-breeding birds, may be seen at sea round
Guernsey, and one or two stragglers may generally be seen when crossing
from Guernsey to Sark or Herm. I have never seen the variety called the
Ringed Guillemot, _Alca lacrymans_, in the Channel Islands, but, as it
may occasionally occur, it is as well to mention it, although it is now
rightly considered only a variety of the Common Guillemot, from which it
differs only in summer plumage, when it has a white ring round the eye,
and a white streak passing backwards from the eye down the side of the
neck: this distinction is not apparent in the winter plumage, nor is
there any distinction between the eggs.

The Guillemot is included in Professor Ansted's list, but is only marked
as occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There are two specimens in summer
plumage in the Museum, and one in winter plumage.

157. LITTLE AUK. _Mergulus alle_, Linnaeus. French, "Guillemot
nain."--The Little Auk can only be considered a rare occasional wanderer
to the Channel Islands, generally driven before the heavy autumnal and
winter gales. I only know of the occurrence of two specimens: one of
these was recorded by Mr. Couch in the 'Zoologist' for 1875, as having
been killed on the 30th January in that year; and I had a letter from
Mr. Couch, dated the 20th December, 1872, in which he informed me that a
Little Auk had been taken alive in Guernsey on the 17th of that month:
this one had probably, as is often the case, been driven ashore during
a gale, and, being too exhausted to rise, had been taken by hand.

The Little Auk is included in Professor Ansted's list, and marked as
occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There is no specimen at present in the
Museum.

158. PUFFIN. _Fratercula arctica_, Linnaeus. French, "Macareux."--The
Puffin, or Barbelote[27] as it is called by the Guernsey sailors and in
the Guernsey Bird Act, is a regular and numerous summer visitant to the
Islands, breeding in considerable numbers in many places. None breed,
however, in Guernsey itself, or in any of the little rocky islands
immediately surrounding it. Some breed on Sark and the islands about it,
and a few also on Herm; but their great breeding quarters about these
parts are from the Amfrocques to the north end of Herm. On every one of
the little rocky islands between these places, and including the
Amfrocques, considerable numbers of Puffins breed, either in holes in
the soft soil which ha