RECENT VISITATION OF THE LITTLE AUK TO SCOTLAND 101 



At the end of January Mr. D. Bruce watched a small 

 party about three hundred yards off the shore at Dunbar. 

 A blinding snowstorm prevailed at the time, and a strong 

 easterly wind had been driving the birds into broken water. 

 After being buffeted for some time a few of them took wing 

 and endeavoured to fly seaward, but the wind gradually lifted 

 them high into the air, when some of them seemed suddenly 

 to be turned quite over, and were driven back and inland be- 

 fore the gale ; the others were driven on to the beach. The 

 remainder of the party made their way out to sea, diving 

 through the waves when just about to break upon them. 



Lastly, Mr. Dunbar, Thurso, tells us that a party of from 50- 

 60 flew from the sea over the rocks and made their way inland. 



In FEBRUARY the weather remained very wintry until 

 the closing week of the month. During this period the cold 

 was intense, the coldest experienced in Scotland for forty 

 years, as many as 40 of frost being registered. There was 

 much ice in all the Firths on the East Coast ; and heavy 

 snowstorms were experienced. Many Little Auks were 

 found dead, some of which had, no doubt, fallen victims to 

 the past storms ; but many also succumbed to the severe cold, 

 which must have told upon numbers of them in their low 

 condition, the result of the many and great hardships ex- 

 perienced among the winds and waves of the previous month. 

 All that were shot, so far as we know, were in a more or less 

 lean condition, with little or nothing in their stomachs. Dr. 

 Ogilvie found the same to be the case with the specimens ex- 

 amined by him. Mr. Small, however, reports that the gullet 

 of one received from Orkney was crammed with small, trans- 

 parent, shrimp-like Crustaceans, half an inch long, probably 

 a species of Jlfj'sis; while the stomach and gullet of one shot 

 at Aberdour, and examined by Mr. Evans, was full of a fleshy 

 substance, probably fish. Mr. Wm. Evans saw ten specimens, 

 all recently dead, several of them were still afloat among the 

 broken ice drifting in with the tide, near South Queensferry 

 on the gth of February, a calm day with intense frost. Ex- 

 amples, mostly old and mummified, continued to come under 

 the notice of our observers ; but a few fresh specimens were 

 sent to the taxidermists, for preservation, until the end of the 

 month, indicating that death was still thinning their ranks. 



