552 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



LITTLE AUK, 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, 

 1863, 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, 



