J56 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



in Franz Josef Land, but has not been observed much further east. In the other 

 direction Baffin Bays appears to be limit of its westward range Di Nansen 

 observed it to the north-east of Franz Josef Land, in lat. 8 2° N , in June {vide 

 "Ibis," 1898, p. 272). 



In some localities where open water exists during the winter it is practically 

 a resident, but the greater part of the countless hosts of these little Arctic birds 

 are dispersed, during winter, over the northern seas and ocean. 



In winter a certain number wander southwards , on the American side as far 

 as the Middle States or beyond, and in Europe it visits "the Faeroes, the coast 

 of Scandinavia, the North Sea, Germany, the Netherlands, France, the western 

 side of the Iberian Peninsula, the Canaries and the Azores" (" Yarrell," 4th Ed.). 

 It does not appear to have been noticed within the Straits of Gibraltar, nor does 

 Professor Giglioli include it in his account of the avifauna of Italy. At Heligoland 

 solitary examples are shot annually, and in some years pretty large numbers are 

 obtained. 



The Little Auk lays one egg under rocks, in the interior of heaps of broken 

 rock, and in holes and in crevices in rocks or cliffs. It is pale green or bluish- 

 green, occasionally marked with indistinct spots or lines of pale brown, and 

 measures about r85 in length by about 1*25 in breadth. 



On the island of Jan Mayen, where it is met with at a height of a few feet 

 above sea-level as frequently as on the highest peaks of the mountains, it inhabits 

 small cavities and crevices, but " the majority of the birds are obliged to put up 

 with stone-heaps and loam or clay fields, depositing its eggs in holes at the depth 

 often of a metre below the surface" ("Zoologist," 1890, p. 45). Eggs were found 

 here deposited not only on the naked rock, but also on the ice remaining in the 

 crevices. Millions of Little Auks, together with other birds, were found breeding 

 by Mr. A. H. Cocks, on Rottge's Hill, a vast precipice, two thousand feet high, 

 in Spitsbergen, but the breeding shelves were inaccessible to man (" Zoologist," 

 1882, p. 328). 



Colonel H. W. Feilden, writing of the birds observed during the Arctic 

 expedition of 1875-6, says that the north water of Baffin Bay is the summer home 

 of countless numbers of these birds ; but that they did not go far in any numbers 

 up Smith Sound, the most northern point where he observed them being latitude 

 79 . He continues " I do not think that they breed to the north of Foulke Fiord ; 

 but the talus at the base of the cliffs that flank that inlet is occupied by myriads 

 of them during the nesting season. On the 28th July, we found the young just 

 hatched ; they are in that stage covered with black down. From the large amount 

 of bones and feathers lying around the huts of the Esquimo village of Etah, it is 



