78 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



a range of localities, as during the past winter, especially 

 in the second half of January. The " wreck " of seventeen 

 years ago was very fully reported on, so far as Scotland 

 was concerned, by Mr Eagle Clarke, in the Annals of 

 Scottish Natural History for 1895 ; and it is hoped that 

 Misses Rintoul and Baxter will be able to incorporate, 

 in more or less detail, the records of this latest Alle alle 

 disaster in their annual " Report on Scottish Ornithology." 

 Meantime, the more important facts, culled from the 

 numerous records that have been kindly sent in by 

 correspondents in various parts of Scotland from Shetland 

 to the Borders, may here be mentioned. 



Of the successive steps by which the birds reached our 

 shores from their Arctic breeding-haunts — possibly in 

 Spitzbergen — we have no knowledge. Probably the species 

 occurs every winter more or less abundantly in some 

 part of the North Sea — off Shetland and Orkney, for 

 instance, or even further south — and it only requires certain 

 weather conditions to bring the birds within our ken. Of 

 these, severe north-easterly and easterly gales, with which 

 the pronounced visitations are invariably associated, 

 undoubtedly play the chief role. Thus, in the present 

 instance, we find that the bulk of the records occurred 

 during and immediately after the fierce easterly gale of 

 15th to 1 8th January, which blew with great force on our 

 whole North Sea frontage, bringing with it an unusually 

 high sea. But, from the records, one may infer that adverse 

 conditions had somewhere been encountered previous to that 

 storm. As early as the middle of November, Little Auks 

 were seen at Auskerry (Orkney) and Fair Isle, while in the 

 Pentland Firth (about the Skerries, etc.), they are reported to 

 have been present in " great numbers " from early in 

 November till the January gale. The first half of December 

 furnishes records from such widely separated localities as 

 Lerwick (several obtained during first week) ; Lochmaddy, 

 in the Outer Hebrides (one, received at Oban on 9th) ; 

 Tarbatness, E. Ross (one on 12th); and Inchkeith, in 

 the Firth of Forth (one on 3rd, and numbers on 8th 

 and 17th, when some were washed ashore). Later in 



