ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 181 



The Hawfinch in East Lothian. On 25111 April 1907, one of 

 my foresters picked up a dead adult male Hawfinch (Coccothraustes 

 vulgaris] close to the foot of a spruce near the lake at Smeaton- 

 Hepburn. The bird being strange to him, he gave it to my boy, who 

 in turn brought it to me for identification. The bird had evidently 

 been dead a few days and the breast was slightly eaten, fortunately 

 the skin was in a sufficiently good condition to be capable of being 

 preserved. The occasions on which the Hawfinch has been found 

 in East Lothian are few : so far as I have been able to ascertain 

 there is no certain record of their having been seen alive in the 

 county. Mr. W. Evans, to whom I wrote, kindly replied that 

 in the autumn of 1904 a keeper at Luffness stated to him that he 

 had seen a pair in the woods there. This identification may or may 

 not have been correct ; that they should not have been seen alive, is 

 no more than one would expect, taking into consideration their un- 

 doubted rarity, and the extraordinary facility possessed by them 

 of avoiding the human eye. Turnbull, in his "Birds of East Lothian," 

 says, " rare, mostly seen in winter " ; in this connection I may 

 mention that I have a specimen probably obtained by my father in 

 the county, but so far no record of its origin has been found. Mr. 

 Tunnard tells me that, in addition to the female found starved in 

 Tynninghame gardens during the third week of February 1904 (and 

 recorded), there is a male in the museum there, obtained, he thinks, 

 in the eighties, and recorded. I have not had an opportunity of 

 finding this notice. The foregoing notes and records seem to 

 complete the history of the Hawfinch in East Lothian so far as 

 known. 



With regard to other parts of Scotland the records though few, 

 as Mr. Eagle Clarke writes me, include an adult and a young bird 

 at Arniston, and an undoubted egg from Fife ; he also mentions 

 having received a notice of a male obtained in the Upper Forth 

 district during March this year. That there is a record of the 

 steady extension of the Hawfinch's breeding area northward from 

 its haunts in the south of England is undoubted, and I am 

 reasonably certain, considering April is the birds' breeding month, 

 that both the Smeaton bird, and that in the Upper Forth district, 

 would have had nests, had not an evil fate overtaken them. Mr. 

 Eagle Clarke is of opinion that the Hawfinch is undoubtedly 

 establishing itself in Scotland. 



Lord Lilford, in his " British Birds," mentions that in summer 

 the Hawfinch frequents and shows a marked preference for the 

 yew tree, which is also a favourite nesting-place ; it is perhaps worth 

 recording that the spruce tree (a bare pole) at the foot of which the 

 bird was found is surrounded by old yews, and forms the com- 

 mencement of an old yew walk, so I have hopes that it may yet be 

 my fortune to find a nest. ARCHIBALD BUCHAN-HEPBURN. 



