A UKS. 
537 
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 egg 
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. Amonc these are the tufted 
o 
auk (Simorhynchus cristatellus), 
remarkable for the forwardly 
curving tufts of feathers at the 
root of the beak; the knob¬ 
billed auk ( S. 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. psittaculus). 
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.) 
LITTLE AUKS. 
