RUDDER-BIRD— RUDDOCK 797 



and in 1818 Beechey (Voy. Dorothea and Trent, p. 46) estimated 

 that he frequently saw a column in Magdalena Bay which he 

 calculated to consist of " nearly four millions of birds on the wing 

 at one time.^ These numbers may have dwindled at the present 

 day through the depredations of sealing and whaling crews ; but 

 some of the most recent voyagers yet speak of countless congrega- 

 tions, though it must be remembered that, as with the Alddm in 

 general, the breeding-places are comparatively few in regard to the 

 extent of coast, and especially so in the case of the Rotche, which 

 lays its bluish-white and generally spotless egg not on a ledge of 

 rock, but in a cavity worn by the weather, or in the " scree " of 

 loose stones at the foot of high cliffs. Consequently suitable 

 stations are by no means common, but often many miles apart, and 

 are, moreover, not unfrequently situated at some distance from the 

 sea, security against foxes being apparently one great object sought 

 in their selection. In Smith Sound the Rotche is said not to 

 breed below lat. 68° or above 79°, and not even to occur in the 

 so-called Polar Basin ; but it goes much further northward in the 

 Spitsbergen seas and is included among the birds of Franz-Josef 

 Land, as presumably nesting there. Though it frequents the shores 

 of Nova Zembla {Froc. Zool. Sac. 1877, p. 29), it is not found east 

 of the Kara Sea, and thus its breeding-range is not so very wide, 

 while the most southern locality at which its eggs have been taken 

 is Grimsey on the north coast of Iceland, an island which is just 

 cut by the Arctic Circle. In winter stray examples are not at all 

 unfrequently met with on the shores of the British Islands, or are 

 driven by stress of weather far inland, and they have occurred even 

 in the Azores and Canaries (Godman, Ibis, 1866, p. 102; 1874, 

 p. 224), but these are mere accidental wanderers from the vast 

 hosts that must somewhere exist, and what becomes of the enor- 

 mous number of birds of this and other kindred species at that 

 season is a problem as yet unsolved, though it is obvious that they 

 must resort to some part of the North Atlantic when the waters 

 near their homes are frozen. 



The Little Auk is a compactly - built bird, some 8 inches in 

 length, with the general coloration of its Family, glossy black above 

 and pure white beneath, the latter in winter-plumage extending to 

 the chin. The squab young, with their dark blue skin thinly 

 clothed with black down, are strange-looking objects. 



RUDDER-BIRD or -DUCK, a name for Erismatura rubida, one 

 of the Spiny-tailed DucKS (p. 168). 



RUDDOCK, A.S. Rudduc, a well-known name for the Red- 

 breast. 



^ This result may seem incredible ; but from my own experience {Ibis, 1865, 

 p. 204) I do not feel justified in doubting it {cf. suprd, Puffin, p. 751, note 2). 



