55 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
Lirrte Aux, Mergulus melanoleucos. ‘The Little 
Auk is only an accidental rough-weather visitor to 
our county, and even then an unwilling one, only 
coming when storm-driven. The only two specimens 
I know of as having occurred were in November, 
18638, on the 3rd of which month Mr. Haddon had a 
Little Auk brought to him alive: it had been caught 
in some faggots on the top of a wood-rick at King- 
ston, near Taunton, and is now in Mr. Haddon’s 
collection: on the day following Mr. Welman, when 
out shooting with me at Burnham, picked up a Little 
Auk dead on the mud, where it must have been left 
by the receding tide; it was quite fresh and ap- 
parently only just dead: this bird is now in Mr. 
Welman’s collection: it was very rough, blowing 
weather at the time, and the wind mostly west. 
Both captures were recorded by me in the * Zoolo- 
gist’ for 1864. Montagu mentions another speci- 
men having been picked up dead near Bridgwater: 
this was also in the month of November. 
Generally this “plump, round-shaped bird,” as 
Bewick calls it, is a dweller in extreme northern 
latitudes, and although occasionally making its ap- 
pearance on various parts of our coast, and some- 
times even inland, it does not appear to be a regular 
visitor to any part of England. 
Meyer says that these birds collect in considerable 
numbers at their breeding stations, and each lays its 
single egg deep in a crevice amongst the loose stones, 
