98 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



be the direct result of particular weather conditions, usually 

 severe northerly gales. These storms drive the birds from 

 their accustomed boreal winter quarters, 1 perhaps off the polar 

 ice, first into the British seas, and then on to our inhospitable 

 isles, where they perish miserably, either as hopeless wrecks 

 upon our shores, or, being swept far inland, among hedges and 

 ditches, moor and woodlands, and even in our villages, towns, 

 and cities. It is in such a Little Auk year, and then only, 

 that our ornithologists have an opportunity of seeing the 

 species as a British bird, except here and there and now and 

 then in autumn and winter among the Scottish Islands. 



In the Orkney Islands Mr. Moodie-Heddle tells us that 

 a few occur almost every season, and that he has several 

 times known them to come ashore dead in scores along with 

 Puffins and Cormorants. " When the wind is westerly we 

 get more Puffins and Razorbills, and when it northers and 

 casters there are fewer of these species and more Little Auks. 

 But when the wind gets southward of east we get few sea- 

 birds of any kind after a gale." 



It has been thought desirable that such a record visit as 

 that of 1894-95 should not pass without special notice, so 

 far as Scotland is concerned, in our pages. To this end a 

 mass of useful data has been collected by Messrs. T. E. 

 Buckley, Wm. Evans, J. A. Harvie-Brown, and John Paterson. 

 This has been placed in my hands to report upon, and, along 

 with my own collected notes, forms the basis of this contribu- 

 tion. It must be borne in mind, however, and of this I am 

 quite convinced, that a mere tithe only of the total number 

 of Little Auks which have recently occurred in Scotland 

 have come under observation ; and of these, again, a mere 

 tithe have been reported to us. 



The whole of the records received have been duly 

 delineated on the map which accompanies this report, and 

 are also precisely tabulated in chronological sequence in its 

 final pages. 



The winter of 1894-95 had been remarkably mild, calm, 

 and fine, until the early hours of the 22nd DECEMBER, when 



1 Sir John Richardson states, in his " Polar Regions," p. 278, that this bird 

 "keeps the sea in the high latitudes all the winter, wherever open water exists, 

 but numbers of the species migrate southward.'' 



