LITTLE AUK. 431 



harm's way for the night. But the cabin boy said from the beginning 

 that ' he was too good to live/ and we felt it so ourselves. As 

 he lived happy, he died lamented. On opening the basket one 

 morning to give him his usual meal, he was found lying much in 

 his usual attitude upon his breast but dead. So when we were 

 offered the cormorant of Quendal Bay, a large magnificent bird, 

 with dark, yet lustrous plumage, who would almost have swallowed 

 a fishwoman, haddocks and creel together, we remembered the 

 premature fate of the tyste, and forbore." 



THE LITTLE AUK. 



MERGULUS MELANOLEUCOS. 



THIS interesting little bird is of irregular and uncertain occurrence 

 only in the West of Scotland. So far as I can learn, not more than 

 three or four specimens have, at any time, been met with in the 

 Outer Hebrides. Mr M 'Donald procured two in North Uist in the 

 winter of 1868-69. They were both found dead on the beach, having 

 been cast up by the waves during a storm from the west, but were 

 quite fresh, showing they had been in life a few hours previously. 

 Similar waifs have been picked up at other places in rough weather; 

 and many living, though exhausted little Auks, have been scattered 

 broadcast over the western mainland in the same accidental way. 

 Thus in the winters of 1866-67 and 68, several were captured 

 near Oban, and southwards, as far as the Firth of Clyde, other 

 examples were obtained. The species has also been shot at 

 Millport, in the Isle of Cumbrae, and on the banks of Loch Fyne, 

 as I have been informed by Mr William Hamilton, Jun. Specimens 

 of the bird have even been found as far inland as Kilmarnock, in 

 Ayrshire, on the west coast, and in the heart of Lauderdale on 

 the east. 



It is not a little singular that in migrating southwards this 

 species should keep almost entirely to the east coast. In East 

 Lothian, where for many years I had ample opportunities of 

 watching its appearance, it is observed regularly every winter; 

 coming near the shore, however, only in stormy weather. Some 

 of my earliest records of the Little Auk, written as far back as 

 1846, notify sudden and unusual nights of the bird landwards, and 

 the capture of numerous specimens almost daily so long as the 



