212 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



species is " not common, but less obtrusive than the preceding, 

 frequenting places not so much exposed." We may dispose 

 of the Loch Lomond records appearing in Mr. James 

 Lumsden's sketch paper of the birds of that region in the 

 " Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glas." (iii. p. 63), and in his "Guide 

 to the Natural History of Loch Lomond," by quoting 

 a letter which I received from him recently. He says (29th 

 May 1899) : " I included it in my list of Loch Lomond birds 

 as the late Mr. Gray, author of " The Birds of the West of 

 Scotland," told me he had seen it here. I cannot be certain 

 of having seen it myself." With regard to Gray's statement, 

 above quoted, to More, that he had obtained the bird from 

 Argyleshire, it may be said that the catalogue of Gray's 

 birds, which are now in the Museum of Science and Art, 

 Edinburgh, contains no reference to the Lesser Whitethroat ; 

 but Mr. William Evans has a skin and eggs of this species 

 which he got from Mrs. Gray, and these he believes Gray 

 got in the west. Unfortunately, there are no data with 

 either, so that we cannot identify the skin (which I have 

 seen) with that obtained by Gray in Argyleshire. It is, 

 however, Mr. Evans says, done up exactly as the skins pre- 

 pared by Gray usually were. In Gray and Anderson's 

 ' Birds of Ayrshire and Wigtownshire ' (" Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. 

 Glas., i. p. 283) it is stated to be "sparingly met with," and 

 to have been " well known as an Ayrshire bird thirty years 

 ago." I am unable to say where Gray gets this informa- 

 tion as to Ayrshire " thirty years ago," unless it be 

 from Rennie. " The Birds of the West of Scotland," etc. 

 (1871), does not help us much, as there are no particulars 

 of occurrences, but only a generalisation that " it is sparingly 

 met with in some parts of Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, and 

 Dumbarton, and extends to the middle of Argyleshire." 

 In Bryce's "Geology of Arran," etc. (1872), Mr. Gray states 

 in his article on Birds that he had not succeeded in getting 

 this species there, but does not doubt that it is there for the 

 finding. According to the same writer, in his article ' On 

 the Birds of Glasgow and its Vicinity ' in the " Notes on the 

 Fauna and Flora of the West of Scotland" (1876), it is "a 

 regular summer visitant," but it is not included in Mr. H. C. 

 Young's ' List of Birds which Breed in the Vicinity of 



