RUDDER-BIRD—RUDDOCK 707 
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 Alcidx 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 (Proc. Zool. Soc. 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 Hrismatura rubida, one 
of the Spiny-tailed Ducks (p. 168). 
RUDDOCK, A.S. Rudduc, a well-known name for the REp- 
BREAST. 
1 This result may seem incredible ; but from my own experience (Jbis, 1865, 
p- 204) I do not feel justified in doubting it (¢f supra, PUFFIN, p. 751, note 2), 
