AUKS. 



537 



LITTLE AUKS. 



upper-parts being mostly black, while the remainder of the lower-parts, a spot 

 over the eye, the tips of the secondaries, and the margins of the scapulars are 

 white. In the winter plumage, on the 

 other hand, the white area includes the 

 throat, chin, and sides of the head. 



The little auk ranges in the Arctic 

 regions from Novaia Zemlia and Spitz- 

 bergen to Greenland, migrating south- 

 wards in winter as far as New Jersey on 

 the one side of the Atlantic, and to the 

 Canaries on the other. In its breeding- 

 places, where it appears in May, it con- 

 gregates in countless thousands, if not in 

 millions. The single bluish white ^gg 

 is laid so deep among the loose fragments 

 of rock that it can only be reached with 

 difficulty, and the young leave the 

 breeding-places for the open sea before 

 they can fly. An expert diver and a 

 strong swimmer, the rotche feeds chiefly 

 on crustaceans and marine worms. In 



spite, however, of its oceanic habits, it appears to be ill-adapted to fight against 

 the storms of winter, during the prevalence of which it is frequently driven far 

 inland; and in the severe winter of 1894-95 hundreds were thus driven into 

 England. 



Pacific Related to the rotche are a number of small auk-like birds from 



Pigmy Auks, the Northern Pacific, all of which differ from that species in having 



the chin -angle nearer to the 

 nostril than to the base of the 

 beak. Among these are the tufted 

 auk {Simorhynchiis cristatellus), 

 remarkable for the forwardly 

 curving tufts of feathers at the 

 root of the beak; the knob- 

 billed auk (8. pusillus), taking its 

 name from the presence in summer 

 of a knob at the base of the beak 

 which disappears in winter; and 

 the parrot -auk (S. iisittaculus). 

 Still more remarkable is the horn- 

 billed auk (Cerorhyncha mono- 

 cerata), in which the compressed 

 and curved beak is longer than in 

 the preceding forms, and is pro- 

 vided at the base with a single horn-like knob above the nostrils, which is shed 

 in winter. All these birds have much the same habits as the more typical auks, 



HEAD OF TUFTED AUK. 



(From Guillemard's Cruise of the Marchesa.) 



