NOTES. 337 



unpacking them found this egg. He placed it on one side 

 for further examination, but omitted to do so, and the 

 egg was overlooked until 1900. In the Ihis for that year 

 I described it, vide p. 694, but was under the impression at 

 the time that it belonged to Mr. Gardner, who showed it 

 to me and kindly allowed me to have it photographed. 

 It also was ]3urchased on April 17th, 1912, by Messrs. Rowland 

 Ward, Limited, but only realised £147. Edward Bidwell. 



THE 1912 " WRECK " OF THE LITTLE AUK. 



Scotland. — An excellent general account of the visitation 

 as it affected Scotland is given in the April issue of the Scottish 

 Naturalist (pp. 77-81). The bulk of the records are stated 

 to have occurred during and immediately after the fierce 

 easterly gale of January 15- 18th, while by February the 

 majority had disappeared. Further south, however, it will 

 be remembered that even greater numbers occurred in the 

 first week of February than in January, and this was apparent 

 even as far north as Northumberland (c/. supra, pp. 309-10), 

 while the majority of inland English records were early in 

 February. Even as early as the middle of November and 

 on\\'ards until the January gale Little Auks were noted in 

 the Orkneys and Shetlands as being present in " great 

 numbers," and in December and January a good many were 

 recorded on the coasts of the mainland down to the Clyde 

 and the Forth, but chiefly on the east side. The gale in the 

 middle of January brought hundreds to grief on the east 

 coast from Shetlands to Berwick, and they seem to have been 

 in greatest numbers in the Firth of Forth, where on January 

 18th — the last day of the gale — hundreds were seen about 

 the May and around the Bass, while during the next few days 

 the tide washed them up in " dozens " on the shores of the 

 Forth. On the 19th three or four hundred appearing to be 

 very tired arrived at the Bell Rock. Many single birds were 

 driven inland, and indeed right across the country, records 

 coming from Perth, Stirling, Dumbarton, Renfrew, Lanark, 

 Wigtown and other counties, between January 20th and 27th. 



As compared to the visitation of 1894-5 it is stated that 

 fewer records have come from districts north of Forth and 

 Clyde, but they have extended further south-west. Almost 

 all the birds examined were in an emaciated state, and con- 

 tained no food. 



It seems probable that the January gale in Scotland drove 

 the bulk of the birds south, for large numbers were passing 

 south on January 18th, on the Northumberland coast {supra, 

 p. 309). and they were first noticed in Yorkshire and Norfolk 



