Little Auk 513 



far North appear almost incredible; but there it finds an un- 

 limited supply of the crustaceans and other small marine animals 

 on which it subsists. Colonel Sabine related that off the coast 

 of Greenland, in latitude 76, in the channels of water separating 

 fields of ice, ' hundreds were killed daily for food/ and the ship's 

 company supplied with this acceptable change of diet. Norden- 

 skiold speaks of an ' Auk- fell in Spitzbergen inhabited by millions 

 of Auks, which sit closely packed together in all the clefts and 

 crevices of the rocks, and the air was literally darkened by the 

 multitude of fowl on the wing at one time. Other vast flocks 

 were sitting upon and between the ice-floes, seeking their food.' 

 In another part he came to a mountain fifteen hundred feet in 

 height which, ' from the hundreds of thousands of Auks which 

 frequent it, was called Alk hornet, " the Auk horn," and here land, 

 sea, ice, and sky seemed darkened with the dense flocks :' while 

 in the same dreary country Admiral Beechey ' frequently saw a 

 column of Rotches which by means of a rough calculation he 

 estimated as consisting of nearly four millions of birds on the 

 wing at one time.'* The Little Auk is only a winter visitor to 

 our coasts, and then seldom comes to land, except when driven 

 in by stress of severe storms, so that I esteemed myself fortunate 

 in obtaining two specimens for my collection, which had been so 

 carried inland on the coast of Norfolk. It is a quaint-looking, 

 heavy bird for its size, with short wings, but great powers of 

 diving. Mergulus indeed signifies 'Little Diver,' but alle is a 

 Lapp name, presumably taken from the bird's note. In addition 

 to the familiar names given above, it is also known provincially 

 as the 'Sea Dove,' and the 'Little Black and White Diver/ but 

 in Sweden it is promoted to the rank of royalty, being known 

 there as Sjo Rung, or 'Sea King.' In France it is Guillemot 

 nain, 'Dwarf Guillemot' ; in Germany, Der Kleine Alk; in Italy 

 Uria minore. I am again indebted to Mr. Grant for the in- 

 formation of its occurrence in Wiltshire, two specimens having 



Professor Newton in Ibis for 1865, p. 204 ; Captain Beechey's ' Yoyage 

 of Discovery towards the North Pole,' 1818, p. 46 ; Nordenskiold's Arctic 

 Voyages,' 1858 1879, pp. 53, 68; Lieutenant Greeley's 'Three Years of 

 Arctic Service,' vol. ii., p. 373. 



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