ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 249 



equally attended by doubt. The Wood Sandpiper then can still 

 only be described as a casual visitant, of rare occurrence, and 

 chiefly on autumn migration. 



It is quite possible nevertheless at least in my opinion that 

 such visits may be more frequent than the fewness of the records 

 would allow one to suppose. On the wing the bird is exceedingly 

 like the Green Sandpiper, and the Green Sandpiper, though by no 

 means a very familiar bird to many of us, is yet of not infrequent 

 occurrence on our shores. Having myself, as I believe, seen both 

 birds in the same week, I can say that it would be exceedingly hard 

 for any ordinary person to distinguish the one from the other in life. 

 The only method of identification which suggests itself to me, for 

 anyone who is not personally familiar with both ochropits and 

 glareola, is the size of the white patch on the lower back. This 

 appeared to me, as the bird rose, to be smaller than the patch on a 

 Green Sandpiper or on a young Greenshank as in fact it is. There 

 isn't,' I think, any other bird with which a Wood Sandpiper is likely 

 to be confused. WILLIAM BERRY, Newport, Fife. 



Scaup Duck (F. mania) in August. On the same day ist 

 August, at the Morton Lochs, near Tentsmuir, Fifeshire I shot a 

 male Scaup Duck, in dull, summer plumage. I have no explanation 

 to offer for the presence of an adult and apparently healthy bird of 

 this species at this season. Possibly some former injury or wound 

 may have prevented it from making its usual summer migration 

 northwards. Being in a phase of plumage unusual in British 

 specimens, it was presented to the Royal Scottish Museum. 

 WILLIAM BERRY, Newport, Fife. 



Lesser Rorqual (Balcenoptera acuto-rostrata) in the Firth of 

 Forth. On the evening of 2ist June last a Lesser Rorqual was 

 stranded on the beach adjoining Musselburgh Links, where I subse- 

 quently had an opportunity of examining it. It was a female about 

 24^ feet in length, and had been pursued by two boats for a couple 

 of hours before it ran ashore. During September several " bottle- 

 nosed " whales have been reported on both sides of the Firth. One 

 which I examined near Port Seton was a female Hyperoodon restrains 

 about i6L feet in length; it came ashore on 23rd September. 

 WILLIAM EVANS. Edinburgh. 



BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS. 



Utrieularia oehroleuea, R. Hartm., and Eriophorum panieu- 

 latum in the valley of the Dee, in South Aberdeenshire (92), 

 Druce. During the first three weeks of August 1911 I resided in 

 the district of Dinnet, and was able to explore much of it botanically. 



