48 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



for the collection of the Carlisle Museum. Perhaps I may be 

 allowed to take this opportunity of reminding ornithological friends 

 that I am leaving Cumberland at the end of the year. I hope to 

 continue to study and record our Lakeland birds ; letters directed to 

 the care of the Carlisle Museum will continue to find- me ; but our 

 home address, after 3ist December, will be The Rectory, Pitlochry, 

 Perthshire. H. A. MACPHERSON, Allonby. 



Grasshopper Warbler nesting- in Moray shire. The Grass- 

 hopper Warbler (Locustella ncevia) is not recorded in Messrs. 

 Harvie-Brown and Buckley's " Fauna of the Moray Basin " as 

 nesting in the district ; nevertheless it has done so for at least the 

 last three or four years. In July 1896, and again in July 1897, I 

 saw eggs in the possession of a schoolboy which he had got beside 

 the river Lossie, near Elgin. I asked him to let me have the nest 

 if he should find another, and in July 1898 he sent me a nest and 

 an egg which he had obtained in the same locality. I had little 

 doubt regarding them ; but they have now been submitted to Mr. 

 Harvie-Brown, and he is quite satisfied as to their identity. ROBERT 

 H. MACKESSACH. 



Yellow Wagtail at Beauly. On nth July I saw a single 

 specimen of Motacilla rail in the marshy meadows near the mouth 

 of the Beauly River. This occurrence of the Yellow Wagtail is 

 perhaps worth recording, as the exact status of the species in the 

 North of Scotland seems uncertain. Messrs. Harvie-Brown and 

 Buckley (" Fauna of the Moray Basin") have not seen it north of the 

 Great Glen ; Booth records it from Tain and Inverness ; and St. 

 John speaks of it as of rare occurrence in the county of Moray. 

 LIONEL W. HINXMAN, Edinburgh. 



Great Gray Shrike in the Solway District. A Great Gray 

 Shrike (Lanius excubitor) was captured below Glencaple on i4th 

 October. It was kept in a cage, but died in a few days. The bird 

 afterwards came into my hands. It proved to be a female, and, 

 from the vermiculated markings on the feathers of the breast, I con- 

 clude it is immature. This species is not nearly so frequently met 

 with of late years as was formerly the case, when for a considerable 

 period several were seen every winter. R. SERVICE, Maxwell- 

 town. 



Kingfisher near the Beauly Firth. A Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida) 

 was shot on a small burn close to the Firth, near Lentran, on nth 

 November. When a Kingfisher does visit that neighbourhood, it is 

 almost sure to be found about that burn, where I have myself seen 

 it on one occasion in August of last year. T. E. BUCKLEY, 

 Inverness. 



Bee-Eater in Shetland. For some days last week a strange bird 

 was seen flying about at Symbister, and on Monday morning Mr. 



