432 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



storm lasted. I recollect getting as many as thirty or forty Little 

 Auks in one week; they were nearly all captured alive, but in an 

 exhausted state, many of them being found in fields and ditches 

 several miles inland. The idea of these birds having come to 

 Britain from Arctic seas within a few hours is hardly tenable ; and 

 I venture to suggest that it is a mistake to suppose that the simul- 

 taneous occurrence of birds and storms can at all be closely 

 associated I mean so far as regards the migration of any species 

 out of its ordinary flight. The Little Auk, which is looked upon 

 as an uncommon bird, is a good illustration of this, being often 

 literally blown on shore in great numbers in a violent gale of not 

 more than a day's duration. On these occasions, its sudden 

 appearance can only be accounted for on the supposition of its 

 being a regular winter migrant to the shores of Scotland, and the 

 experience of the last twenty years has fully confirmed this 

 impression. Coming in annual flocks of many hundreds, these 

 birds keep well off the land probably from twenty to thirty miles 

 and, of course, when a gale blows persistently for twelve or 

 fourteen hours, it obliges them to rise on wing, when they get 

 bewildered, flying, however, before the wind, until they are driven, 

 it may be, a mile or two over field and forest half stupid with 

 fatigue. 



Many of the seafaring people, living on the shores of East 

 Lothian and Fifeshire, are quite familiar with this little bird, 

 meeting with it almost daily when out at sea. They call it the 

 rotchie, or sea dove, and are always able to acquaint local collectors 

 of its appearance. Acting on their information, I have myself 

 repeatedly obtained specimens by inducing a boat's crew to take a 

 gun out with them, with which they could procure winter visitors 

 in calm weather; and it frequently happened that throughout an 

 entire season not a single specimen was seen near the shore, all 

 those obtained having been shot far out at sea. The appearance 

 of the Little Auk in moderate weather within a reasonable distance 

 of the shore, is, in fact, unusual, and for that reason the bird has 

 been reckoned among the rarer species, while in reality it is as 

 common as the guillemot or razor-bill. Joined to these flocks 

 there are sometimes numerous parties of young puffins birds of 

 the first year who share a like fate with the rotches when a 

 sudden storm from the east drives them out of their reckoning. 



Similar observations confirmatory of these views have reached 



