452 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
observed by Mr. Linnaeus Hope near Heston Island, 
Kirkcudbrightshire, on May 23rd, 1907* : but I do not 
know of its nesting in that locality. A specimen was 
picked up dead at Brow Well (Ruthwell) in August, 
1884, by Mr. R. Service, who tells me that during the 
epidemic, so rife among the Guillemots and Razorbills 
from July to September in 1906, more than one Black 
Guillemot was found dead on the Sol way shores. 
This species is at all seasons uncommon off the coasts of 
England, but breeds in suitable precipitous cliffs around 
Scotland and Ireland. It also nests on parts of the coasts 
of Denmark, Scandinavia, the Fseroes and the White Sea, 
also in north-east America and south Greenland ; and is 
normally as pelagic in its habits as the rest of the family. 
THE LITTLE AUK. Mergulus alle (Linnaeus). 
A rare winter-visitor under stress of weather. 
Sir WiUiam Jardine writing of the Little Auk in 1843 says : 
" We have never had the satisfaction to meet with this 
species in a recent state. ... On the southern Scottish 
coasts, specimens have been very seldom procured."! 
Thomas Maxwell told Dr. Grierson that a " Rotche," 
found about 1860 at Lagganburn (Dunscore) was the only 
one he had ever heard of as obtained locally. { This place 
is some thirteen miles inland. 
Mr. J. Harkness found a Little Auk on the shore near 
Brow Well (Ruthwell) in the winter of 1886-1887 ; which 
passed into the possession of Mr. Wilkin of Tinwald Downs. 
After the great gale of November 17th, 1893, numbers 
of this species were driven on to the shores of Great 
Britain, and this unusual visitation has been christened by 
Mr. W. Eagle Clarke " The Wreck of the Little Auk." 
* Trans. Carlisle Nat. Hist. Soc, 1909, pp. 86, 87. 
t Nat. Lib., 1843, Vol. XIV., pp. 224, 225. 
+ Grierson's MS. Notes, October 17th, 1862. 
