123 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



Adult in Winter Plumage. Differs from the summer plumage 

 in wanting the black on the throat; the lores, base of chin, and 

 feathers round the eye black; the sides of the neck white, 

 with an indistinct collar round the hind-neck ; the sides of the 

 neck and the lower throat and fore-neck slightly mottled with 

 blackish sub-terminal markings. 



Considerable variation takes place in the amount of white 

 on the under wing-coverts, which seems to be present in most 

 winter-plumaged specimens, but is absent in some of them, 

 and it is also absent in two summer-plumaged specimens 

 examined by me. In the bird described, however, it is very 

 strongly marked, and the white tips extend over all the 

 marginal coverts on the outside of the wing underneath. 



Range in Great Britain. A winter visitor to our shores, some- 

 times occurring in great numbers, and often driven far inland by 

 stress of weather. Specimens in summer plumage have also 

 been observed, but up to the present date no authentic instance 

 of the breeding of the species within British waters has been 

 recorded. Mr. Howard Saunders states that he saw an old 

 bird with its young one near the island of Pabbay in the 

 Outer Hebrides on the 5th of August, 1886 ; and an adult was 

 actually obtained off Monach Island, in the same group, on 

 the 24th of June, 1893. ^ n tne winter of 1894-95 a great 

 visitation of the species took place, and a large number of 

 specimens were captured in various parts of the British Islands. 

 A paper on the occurrences in Scotland was published by Mr. 

 W. Eagle Clarke in the " Annals of Scottish Natural History," 

 for April, 1895. 



Range outside the British Islands. The Little Auk breeds in 

 Greenland in great numbers up to nearly 79 N. lat, as well 

 as on Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemlya, Franz-Josef Land, and 

 Northern Iceland. In winter it is found in the North Sea 

 and Atlantic, and has been known to extend as far south as 

 the Azores and the Canaries, while on the American side it 

 has been procured off the New England coast in winter. 



Habits. Mr. Howard Saunders remarks: "On the ap- 

 proach of a vessel, this bird has a peculiar habit of splashing 

 along the surface of the water as if unable to fly and then 

 diving through the crest of an advancing wave. It swims 



