THE LESSER WHITETHROAT AS A CLYDE SPECIES 213 



Glasgow ' in the same publication, although he acknowledges 

 " very valuable assistance " from Messrs. Gray and Dixon 

 for " making corrections and additions to the list." The 

 article on the ' Birds of the Clyde Valley ' in Pollock's 

 " Dictionary of the Clyde " is purely a compilation, so that 

 no notice need be taken of it here. The Rev. J. D. W. 

 Gibson believes he has observed it at Glenapp, South 

 Ayrshire, and what he took to be a pair of this species 

 frequented the hedgerows of the glebe of his manse at 

 Carmichael, Lanarkshire, during the early summer of 1896 

 ("Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist," 1897, p. 204). I have seen 

 eggs, stated to have been taken by Mr. James Hood from 

 a nest near South Dean Farm, Kilmarnock, twenty years 

 ago. The eggs had remained unidentified until about two 

 years since, when they were submitted to Messrs. J. Craig 

 and M. Barr of Beith, by whom they were sent on to me. 

 There can be little doubt, I think, about these being Lesser 

 Whitethroat's eggs. Unfortunately, however, their story is 

 a very old one. 



As Mr. Robert H. Read knows the Lesser Whitethroat 

 very well, and as he spent three years in the Glasgow district, 

 I thought it would be interesting to know if he had met it 

 here, as he spent much time birds'-nesting in this district. 

 He writes in reply to my inquiries (3Oth May 1899): 

 " During my three years' residence near Glasgow, I have 

 never met with the Lesser Whitethroat in the flesh. There 

 is a mounted specimen in the Paisley Museum, which the 

 Curator [the late Morris Young] told me was the only one 

 he had met with. He obtained it near Paisley, I believe 

 (I have locality, and, I believe, date, in my note-book), and 

 he was rather proud of the specimen." " It is true," writes 

 Mr. J. M. B. Taylor, the present Curator of the Paisley Free 

 Museum, " that there is a mounted specimen of the Lesser 

 Whitethroat [in the Museum], and that it was presented by 

 the late Mr. Young. As usual with Mr. Young, he neither 

 gives date nor locality. I know, however, that it was killed 

 in the decade 70." 



The list of Renfrewshire birds in the possession of the 

 Paisley Naturalists' Society states that the Lesser White- 

 throat is " not common, has bred near Port-Glasgow." 



