LITTLE AUK. 471 



latitude, and their only food there was small thin-skinned 

 Crustacea. The Little Auk was, however, found in great 

 quantities by our Arctic voyagers in some situations. In 

 his Memoir on the Birds of Greenland, published soon after 

 one of the Voyages of Discovery, Colonel Sabine observes : 

 " This species was abundant in Baffin's Bay, and Davis' 

 Straits ; and in latitude 76 was so numerous in the chan- 

 nels of water separating fields of ice, that many hundreds 

 were killed daily, and the ship's company supplied with 

 them. The whole of the birds in the breeding-season, the 

 sexes being alike, had the under part of the neck an 

 uniform sooty black, terminating abruptly, and in an even 

 line against the white of the belly ; the young birds, which 

 we saw in all stages from the egg, as soon as they were 

 feathered, were marked exactly as the mature birds ; but 

 in the third week in September, when we were on our 

 passage down the American coast, every specimen, whether 

 old or young, was observed to be in change ; and in the 

 course of a few days the entire feathers of the throat and 

 cheeks, and of the under part of the neck, had become 

 white." 



In the adult bird the beak is black ; the irides hazel, 

 with a small white spot over the eye ; the head, hind neck, 

 back, wings, and tail black, but the ends of the secondaries 

 and the sides of the tertials are margined with white ; the 

 colour of the chin, throat, and neck in front, depend on 

 the season, being black in summer and white in winter, 

 but mottled with black and white in spring and autumn ; 

 under surface of the body white ; legs and toes yellowish- 

 brown, the membranes between the toes darker brown. 

 The whole length of the bird is about eight inches and 

 a half ; of the wing from the wrist four inches and a half. 

 M. Temminck says the young birds of the year may be 

 distinguished by having their cheeks shaded with grey. 



