184 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



over the submerged rocks off Skipness Point. The above notes are 

 of special interest to students who have watched the progress and 

 processes of expansion and especially dispersal of a species whose 

 movements in several directions have been already carefully re- 

 corded for many years. 



The accompanying fact that Eiders are now known to frequent 

 the islands of Cara and Gigha is also of importance in tracing the 

 advance of the species southwards along the confines of " Clyde," or 

 on the west side of the watershed between "Argyll" and "Clyde." 

 Apparently they have broken through the divide at its lowest " neck," 

 " pass," or " depression " between Loch Sweyn and the Skipness 

 shore of Loch Fyne, about the closing months of the year 1909. 

 Whether they have nested inside of Clyde area yet or not, these 

 notes cannot fail to be of interest to ornithologists, and we may hope 

 that Mr. R. F. Graham may carefully note down and record such 

 an event and as soon as he can put the occurrence beyond doubt- 

 perhaps in this summer of 1910. J. A HARVIE-BROWN. 



American Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) in 

 Argyllshire. I do not know if the following record of the occur- 

 rence of this bird in Colonsay in 1904 has appeared in any ornitho- 

 logical magazine, but I can find no mention of it in the " Annals of 

 Scottish Natural History." 



Mr. Murdoch M'Neill (author of "Colonsay, one of the Hebrides," 

 Edin. 1910) writes to me that an "unknown bird was found near 

 the centre of the island, on 6th November 1904, by Lady Edith 

 Adean and her son, and was sent for identification to the Natural 

 History Museum, in South Kensington, and was there named the 

 American Yellow-billed Cuckoo." I am informed by my friend Mr. 

 Pycraft that this interesting specimen is now in the Natural History 

 Museum, Cromwell Road, London, S.W. HUGH S. GLADSTONE, 

 Capenoch, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire. 



Notes on Siphonaptera. When examining a Black Water-vole 

 (Arvicola amphibius, var. ater) from Fearnan, Loch Tay, last August, 

 I observed a number of small yellow fleas running about in its fur. 

 A few were secured ; and they proved on examination to be 

 CtenopJithalmus agyrtes (Heller). Many specimens of the same 

 species, mistaken at the time for Ct. gracilis, were also found in a 

 mole's nest at Dirleton, East Lothian, on i4th March, 1908. 



The accidental occurrence of Siphonaptera on other than their 

 natural "host " is not uncommon. Thus, in October 1905, I got a 

 Pulex (Ctenocephalus) felis, $ determined by Mr. N. C. Roths- 

 child on a Tawny Owl from near Edinburgh ; and in April 1908 

 Mr. Macvicar sent me a number of P. cuniculi, Dale, taken off the 

 ears of a cat at Invermoidart, Argyllshire, after it had been in a 

 rabbit's burrow. Occasionally, ' too, one finds them away from any 

 host. In November 1900, for instance, I beat a P. irritans off a 



