THE LITTLE AUK VISITATION OF 191 1-12 79 



the month these were supplemented by others from Isle 

 of May (24th) and both sides of the Forth (Largo district, 

 where two were got alive inland, and Gosford) ; Glencaple, 

 Dumfriesshire (one shot on 26th) ; and Ardmaleish Point, 

 Kyles of Bute (one about 28th). January opened with 

 another record from "Clyde" (one seen between Fairlie and 

 the Greater Cumbrae on the 4th), and a few more derelicts 

 in " Forth" (Largo Bay and Dunbar coast, 3rd to 13th). 



As stated above, the gale of the middle of January was 

 the prelude to a great increase of records, mainly of course 

 from localities along the east coast, where, during the ensuing 

 fortnight, Little Auks were very much in evidence, at first 

 mostly alive, then chiefly lying dead on the beach ; but not 

 a few of the records are from inland localities, some of them 

 far to the west and south-west, the birds in these instances 

 having been carried by the wind virtually across Scotland 

 before falling exhausted. From Shetland, Orkney, Golspie 

 (E. Sutherland), Aberdeenshire and Kincardine coast, 

 Montrose, St Andrews district, Firth of Forth and coast south 

 to Berwickshire, came the same tale of disaster. At the Bell 

 Rock, three or four hundred arrived on 19th January; "they 

 seemed too tired," the lighthouse-keeper writes, " to rise out 

 of the way of the heavy seas that were breaking, and were 

 being tossed about in all fashions." In greatly diminished 

 numbers they stayed till the end of the month. Many found 

 their way into the Firth of Forth, to which a large proportion, 

 indeed the great majority of the records, pertain. On the 1 8th 

 — the last day of the gale — hundreds were seen about the 

 May, and around the Bass diving close alongside the Rock ; 

 and during the next two or three days their presence was 

 noted at various points along both sides of the Firth, particu- 

 larly the south, as far west as Oueensferry, beyond the Forth 

 Bridge. Exhausted and dead examples immediately began 

 to be washed ashore, each succeeding tide bringing in fresh 

 victims, till on certain portions of the shore — notably the 

 beach from North Berwick to Dirleton (where on the 26th 

 the present writer counted forty-one all quite recently dead), 

 the Longniddry section, Joppa to Leith, Granton to 

 Cramond, and Dalmeny beach — they could be reckoned in 



