u8 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



did not possess a specimen of this Diver in the particular stage of 

 plumage of the bird in question ; and it has therefore been accorded 

 an honourable resting-place in the National Collection. WILLIAM 

 BERRY, Tayfield, Newport, Fife. 



Fork -tailed Petrels in Orkney. On the night of zist Sep- 

 tember 1908, the third night of fog, specimens of the Fork-tailed 

 or Leach's Petrel (Procdlaria leucorrhcea) came to the lantern of the 

 Sule-Skerry Lighthouse, Orkney, and three were captured to send to 

 me by the light-keeper. The Storm Petrel (Procellaria pelagica) 

 nests on this island in large numbers, but the Fork-tailed is very 

 rare there. Writing a week previous to their visit, the light-keeper 

 informed me that during his six years' service on the island only 

 three of the Fork-tailed species had been seen there.- -H. W. 

 ROBINSON, Lancaster. 



Bass in the North Sea in Winter. Mr. Thomas Cook, fish- 

 monger, Edinburgh, has presented to the Royal Scottish Museum 

 a fine specimen of the Bass (Labrax labrax), 23 inches in length 

 and weighing 3 Ibs. 5-^ ozs., which was captured 20 miles east of 

 May Island on i4th January. This fish is only occasionally 

 captured in Scottish seas, and is rarely taken anywhere in British 

 waters during the winter months. W. EAGLE CLARKE. 



Ray's Sea -Bream in the Firth of Forth. On the loth of 

 January a fisherman brought me a fine specimen of this fish which 

 he had picked up on the beach at North Berwick. It was in 

 perfectly fresh condition, and measured 22 inches by 9 inches.- 

 W. M. INGLES, North Berwick. 



[Although Dr. Parnell in his "Fishes of the Firth of Forth," 

 published in 1838, regarded Brama rail as a somewhat frequent 

 visitor, yet little information regarding this fish has been placed on 

 record since his day. All we know is that several were cast ashore 

 in the Firth in the winter of 1850 ; and, now, we have Mr. Ingles' 

 interesting record. EDS.] 



Note on the Re-discovery of Apus eaneriformis in Britain.- 

 The Editor has requested me to send him an account of my 

 discovery of Apus eaneriformis in Kirkcudbrightshire in September 

 1907. There is very little to say about it, but there are one or 

 two facts not mentioned by Mr. Robert Gurney in his short note 

 in "Nature," loth October 1907, which it may be well to put on 



record. 



I was " fishing " the small pools on Preston Merse, Southwick, 

 for Water-beetles, and having worked my net through a grassy 

 shallow one, I emptied the contents on to my mackintosh sheet, and 

 saw a thick mass of wriggling Apus. The pool was perhaps 6 

 inches deep, grassy almost all through it, and the water was some- 

 what fouled by cow dung. There were several hundred individuals 



