EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 95 



It makes no nest, but deposits its eggs either in a crevice of 

 the cliff, it may be hundreds of feet above a boiling sea, or 

 amongst the debris under the fallen rock-fragments at the foot 

 of the cliffs. Sometimes they are laid under the large blocks of 

 rock on the beach, and less frequently at considerable distances 

 inland. 



The eggs are almost invariably two in number. Macgillivray 

 says that they are frequently three, and Audubon states that the 

 latter number is the usual clutch. They are subject to but little 

 variation, ranging in ground-colour from very pale buff or creamy- 

 white to very pale bluish-green. The overlying markings are 

 rich deep brown, some of them almost black, and they vary in 

 size from large irregular blotches to minute specks ; many of the 

 blotches are confluent, and form in some instances an irregular 

 zone round the large end. The underlying markings, which are 

 often large and generally very conspicuous, are inky-grey. They 

 vary in length from 2'5 to l 2"2 inches, and in breadth from 17 

 to 1'5 inch. 



THE LITTLE AUK. 

 (Alca alle.)* 



Plate 26, Fig. 3. 



The Little Auk, or " Kotche," is only a winter visitor to the 

 British Islands, and is most common in the extreme northern 

 portions, especially in the Orkneys and Shetlands. It is an 

 Atlantic species, but only breeds north of the Arctic circle. It 

 is most abundant on the coasts of Spitsbergen, where it is said 

 to breed in countless thousands, and ranges eastwards as far as 

 Franz-Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, and westwards to Grimsey 

 Island, North Iceland, and to both shores of Greenland north of 

 lat. 68°. 



It rarely breeds at any high elevation, but lays its single egg 

 in some crevice, or under the loose stones that have fallen from 

 the cliffs, occasionally at some distance from the coast. 



The egg is pale greenish-blue, occasionally indistinctly streaked 

 round the large end with yellowish-brown, and varies in length 

 from 1'9 to 1'8 inch, and in breadth from 1'35 to 1/2 inch. 



* Mergtdus alle — Saunders, Manual, p. 689. 



