RECENT VISITATION OF THE LITTLE AUK TO SCOTLAND 97 



ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE SUB-ALPINE 

 WARBLER IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



AT the meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club held in 

 London on the iQth of December 1894, "Dr. R. Bowdler 

 Sharpe exhibited a specimen of a bird new to the fauna of 

 Great Britain. This was an example of the Sub-alpine 

 Warbler {Sylvia subalpina], which had been forwarded to 

 him for exhibition by Mr. J. S. Elliott, of Dudley, who had 

 shot it himself on the island of St. Kilda on the I3th of 

 June 1894, after a heavy gale from the south-west." 1 



This Warbler is rather smaller than the Lesser White- 

 throat. The male has the upper parts slate gray ; the wings 

 brown, with paler edges to the inner secondaries and the 

 coverts ; the chin, throat, and breast chestnut ; the flanks 

 pale chestnut ; and the centre of the abdomen nearly white. 

 The female is brown above, and has the chin, throat, breast, 

 and flanks buffish white. 



The home of this bird is in the basin of the Mediterranean, 

 but it appears to be absent from Turkey and South Russia. 

 In Europe it is a summer visitor, but in Northern Africa it 

 is a partial resident. 



ON THE RECENT VISITATION OF THE LITTLE 



AUK (MERGULUS ALLE} TO SCOTLAND. 



By WM. EAGLE CLARKE. 



PLATE III. 



THE winter of 1894-95 will be memorable in the annals of 

 British ornithology as a Little Auk season one which 

 witnessed the wreck of this species in vast and, perhaps, un- 

 precedented numbers for a prolonged period, during which 

 disaster followed disaster. 



The visitations of the Little Auk to our shores in unusual 

 numbers are more or less phenomenal, since they appear to 



1 "Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club," No. xxii. vol. iii. p. ix. 



