196 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
and none has been seen in Tiree. With reference to Clyde and 
the fringing districts, Mr. Clarke thinks it ‘“‘not improbable that 
the birds occurring there may have found their way from the 
east coast. The distance between the Firths of Forth and 
Clyde,” he goes on to say, “is only some forty miles, over low 
country ; and we have the important testimony of Mr. James 
Lumsden that they arrived at Loch Lomond, or practically in the 
Clyde, after the severe gale from the east, which is pretty con- 
clusive evidence in favour of the opinion expressed.” 
The reference to the gale from the east is to the cyclonic 
period beginning on 12th January. Now, I believe there is some 
ground for Mr. Clarke’s supposition. I consider it quite likely 
that some of our visitors came across country from the Forth. 
There is no great physical barrier between the water-sheds, and 
the examples found on the 15th January at Killearn, and 20th 
January at Old Killearn and Dennistoun in this city, also a few 
about the same time on the lower end of the west shore of Loch 
Lomond, may have come to us in the way suggested. But this 
must be taken in connection with other facts before us. Thus, 
a week or so before the cyclonic period referred to, three were 
seen at Gourock, and Mr. Lees, Alexandria, to whom Mr. Lumsden, 
like myself, is indebted for information regarding the Loch Lomond 
specimens, states precisely that “the first Little Auk was brought 
in on 4th January alive, having been caught by a shepherd on 
the hill top above Tulliechewan Castle. It fell at his feet among 
the heather, and was easily caught. There was a strong westerly 
wind blowing at the time, with snow.” On the following day one 
was found dead by a roadman on the loch shore at Auchendennan 
Bay. It is therefore likely, I think, that some of the specimens 
found in Clyde have come as stragglers from the west. 
So far as the area under review is concerned, the birds seem, 
from the information in my possession, to have been most abun- 
dant from the Sound of Mull and Oban to Islay inclusive. If 
we assume with Mr. Clarke, from the almost entire absence of 
any notices of occurrences in the north-west and the islands of 
the Outer Hebrides, that the birds did not come “ north about,” 
then some other route than that via Forth and Clyde must be 
found for those occurring in the Inner Hebrides. This is not 
difficult to suggest. The great glen connecting the Moray Firth 
